Yuck. Argh. Yuck. Argh.
Jan. 6th, 2008 12:35 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rivkaMichael and I are both sick. I have this fatigue-and-stomach-issues thing that's been dragging on for a while, and he, poor soul, has a raging ear infection which has left him temporarily deaf in one ear and has pretty much just knocked him out generally.
Alex? Happy and energetic. Until today, anyway.
I took her to the mall this afternoon. (She needed tights, I needed a couple of new bras, and Michael needed a nap.) When our shopping was done, I suggested that we get ice cream, and we walked about two-thirds the length of the extremely large mall to where the Ben & Jerry's... used to be. Shit. It's still showing up on the mall maps, and the store name is still up over the counter, but there isn't any equipment back there anymore.
She took it well, actually. We diverted to Books-a-Million to play with the train table, and when we were done there I asked if she wanted to go look for different ice cream in the food court. I had seen a Carvel stand there. She did, so we walked down there. She was starting to look pretty tired.
"I'm rubbing my little eyes," she remarked to me at one point. I looked, and she was.
Carvel soft-serve turns out to be gross. It was sort of gummy and fake-tasting, and weirdly messier than normal ice cream. I was still surprised when Alex only ate half her cone and then told me she was done. We went out to our car, circled to the exit...
...and Alex burped loudly. We both laughed, because I am also two years old. And then she burped again, and threw up copiously all over her winter coat and her carseat, just as I pulled out into heavy traffic.
She cried a little, and as I said sympathetic things I did a lightning mental survey of what I had in the car to clean her up with: nothing. No baby wipes, no clean rags, no change of clothes for her. Shit. So I decided not to pull over. I told her that we'd get home as quickly as possible, and she cried a little more. And then I heard her bravely sing a few words of "Spoonful of Sugar," the song in the CD player. Awww.
It's about a twenty-five or thirty-minute drive home from the mall. Alex fell asleep pretty quickly after she threw up, and at first I was relieved. Then, just as I exited for Baltimore, I suddenly wondered whether she was really asleep. Could she be unconscious? Could she - and this is where the super-crazy anxious mother thing kicked in - be dead? Struck with an irrational panic, I looked back at a red light and said sharply, "Alex, can you wake up?" Her eyes flickered open. "Okay," I said, embarrassed. "Go back to sleep." She did.
She woke and threw up again as I was parallel-parking outside our house. I took off my coat and dry-clean-only sweater, carried her into the house, shouted to Michael for help. We stripped her (and me - I needed it by that time) down by the washing machine and I carried her up to the bathtub. We got in together. She just wanted me to hold her and hold her. Until I started to really scrub her clean, at which point she told me, weeping, that she wanted her Papa because he would just clean her up with a napkin instead of using a washcloth and soap.
Michael came in to help dry her and dress her. She threw up again on the bathroom floor. We brought her limp little body downstairs and put in a video, and she lay motionless on my lap and whimpered. I tried giving her a sip or two of Pedialyte. She threw up three more times, although certainly by that point there was nothing left inside her at all. It was so hard to watch her struggle.
I had sort of wanted to wait until she'd gone a half-hour without vomiting before I tried to put her to bed, but after the third half-hour video it became clear that that was never going to happen. I told her that we were going to take her up to bed.
"But we haven't had dinner yet," she said weakly.
"You can't have dinner. You can't have any food until you stop throwing up. Are you even hungry?"
"No. But we always have dinner before bedtime."
I explained that this is not so much a rule as a guideline, and we carried her up to bed. She wept when I told her she couldn't have her usual sippy cup of water in the crib, and promised that she wouldn't throw up any more. I let her wet her mouth a little, and within minutes she was asleep.
That was about four hours ago. I am really hoping that the crisis is over and that she'll wake up in the morning thirsty and tired but fine. I'm going to sleep in her room just in case, though. If she wakes up, I can give her more sips of water. If she gets sick again, well, I have two sets of clean sheets and pajamas with me, and a pile of cloth diapers. We'll make it through the night.
I really, really hope she can keep fluids down in the morning.
And I wish that, when the Ben and Jerry's was closed, I had just taken her home. I can't be sure it was the ice cream, but it's hard not to notice that she was totally fine until she ate it.
Alex? Happy and energetic. Until today, anyway.
I took her to the mall this afternoon. (She needed tights, I needed a couple of new bras, and Michael needed a nap.) When our shopping was done, I suggested that we get ice cream, and we walked about two-thirds the length of the extremely large mall to where the Ben & Jerry's... used to be. Shit. It's still showing up on the mall maps, and the store name is still up over the counter, but there isn't any equipment back there anymore.
She took it well, actually. We diverted to Books-a-Million to play with the train table, and when we were done there I asked if she wanted to go look for different ice cream in the food court. I had seen a Carvel stand there. She did, so we walked down there. She was starting to look pretty tired.
"I'm rubbing my little eyes," she remarked to me at one point. I looked, and she was.
Carvel soft-serve turns out to be gross. It was sort of gummy and fake-tasting, and weirdly messier than normal ice cream. I was still surprised when Alex only ate half her cone and then told me she was done. We went out to our car, circled to the exit...
...and Alex burped loudly. We both laughed, because I am also two years old. And then she burped again, and threw up copiously all over her winter coat and her carseat, just as I pulled out into heavy traffic.
She cried a little, and as I said sympathetic things I did a lightning mental survey of what I had in the car to clean her up with: nothing. No baby wipes, no clean rags, no change of clothes for her. Shit. So I decided not to pull over. I told her that we'd get home as quickly as possible, and she cried a little more. And then I heard her bravely sing a few words of "Spoonful of Sugar," the song in the CD player. Awww.
It's about a twenty-five or thirty-minute drive home from the mall. Alex fell asleep pretty quickly after she threw up, and at first I was relieved. Then, just as I exited for Baltimore, I suddenly wondered whether she was really asleep. Could she be unconscious? Could she - and this is where the super-crazy anxious mother thing kicked in - be dead? Struck with an irrational panic, I looked back at a red light and said sharply, "Alex, can you wake up?" Her eyes flickered open. "Okay," I said, embarrassed. "Go back to sleep." She did.
She woke and threw up again as I was parallel-parking outside our house. I took off my coat and dry-clean-only sweater, carried her into the house, shouted to Michael for help. We stripped her (and me - I needed it by that time) down by the washing machine and I carried her up to the bathtub. We got in together. She just wanted me to hold her and hold her. Until I started to really scrub her clean, at which point she told me, weeping, that she wanted her Papa because he would just clean her up with a napkin instead of using a washcloth and soap.
Michael came in to help dry her and dress her. She threw up again on the bathroom floor. We brought her limp little body downstairs and put in a video, and she lay motionless on my lap and whimpered. I tried giving her a sip or two of Pedialyte. She threw up three more times, although certainly by that point there was nothing left inside her at all. It was so hard to watch her struggle.
I had sort of wanted to wait until she'd gone a half-hour without vomiting before I tried to put her to bed, but after the third half-hour video it became clear that that was never going to happen. I told her that we were going to take her up to bed.
"But we haven't had dinner yet," she said weakly.
"You can't have dinner. You can't have any food until you stop throwing up. Are you even hungry?"
"No. But we always have dinner before bedtime."
I explained that this is not so much a rule as a guideline, and we carried her up to bed. She wept when I told her she couldn't have her usual sippy cup of water in the crib, and promised that she wouldn't throw up any more. I let her wet her mouth a little, and within minutes she was asleep.
That was about four hours ago. I am really hoping that the crisis is over and that she'll wake up in the morning thirsty and tired but fine. I'm going to sleep in her room just in case, though. If she wakes up, I can give her more sips of water. If she gets sick again, well, I have two sets of clean sheets and pajamas with me, and a pile of cloth diapers. We'll make it through the night.
I really, really hope she can keep fluids down in the morning.
And I wish that, when the Ben and Jerry's was closed, I had just taken her home. I can't be sure it was the ice cream, but it's hard not to notice that she was totally fine until she ate it.
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Date: 2008-01-06 10:35 pm (UTC)