Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Sick Kid

I hate having to wake a sick child. I really do. Especially when that sick child is only four years old and had a tough night, only to fall into a decent sleep around 5am. To have to wake that child at 7:15 just feels mean.

But I couldn’t leave her in the house this morning while I walked Alyssa to the bus stop and I couldn’t send Alyssa to the bus stop on her own.

Where was their other parent, you ask? Well, he’s had a trip to his brother’s for weeks and one can never depend on a child to get sick when it’s convenient for her parents.

So I woke O up this morning, much to my own hesitance and bundled her up in the car so we could drive Alyssa across the yard to the bus stop.

Then O and I went back in the house where I changed her into clean pajamas, called the school to let them know she’s out sick today and we settled in the rocking chair for the morning.

When I picked the girls up at my mom’s yesterday afternoon, my mom said that Olivia hasn’t eaten well that day. She’d also complained that her arm hurt. My mom gave her some children’s ibuprofen and O went about her day.

On our way home, both girls ate a piece of pizza (it was anniversary pizza, back to the ‘healthy eating’ plan today) and played outside for about a half hour once we got home.

When I called them in to eat more anniversary pizza, Olivia made her way to the couch, where she covered up with a blanket and ignored my attempts to get her to eat.

By 7:00, I was putting pajamas on her and realized she felt warm. I took her temp (only 98.8) and bundled her up to rock. By 7:30, her temperature was up to 99.9, so I gave her some Children’s Advil and we headed to bed.
She woke up at 9:00 to throw up and then tossed and turned for the rest of the night.

Which leads me to the guilt I felt this morning when I had to wake my FINALLY peacefully sleeping baby (hey, if you’re the last child born into a family, you’ll always be the baby, whether you’re three months old or thirty years old so…yeah!)

Tom is the parent in this household who runs to the doctor for everything.

I’m more “let’s wait and see.” It’s a fever. Kids get fevers all the time. Let’s see if her body will fight it off. If she’s still feverish through the night tonight and isn’t feeling any better tomorrow morning, I’ll call the doctor.

We’re lucky, though. Olivia is a fairly cheerful patient. As long as she has a warm body to lounge upon and an endless supply of water to drink as “Tangled” runs on a continuous loop, she’s all pales smiles and weak laughs.

Though at one point last night, she rolled over and said pathetically to me, “I’m so, so sick.”

Milk it, Sweetie. Milk it for all it’s worth.

3 comments:

Should Not Operate Heavy Machinery said...

:( Waking up a sleep child sucks, much less a sick one! Hope this is only a quick sickness stint!

Julie said...

Poor baby, I hope she feels better soon!!!

Tiffany said...

I hope she feels better!!!