Sicknesses

Life seems to have been a complete blur since the calendar changed from 2009 to 2010. Our family was very blessed to have been sick free from fall until the New Year...but then January hit & it all went downhill from there. Sicknesses ran rampant in our home for weeks on end. This past week things seemed to finally slow down a little bit...I was only into the dr. once for an ear infxn for Brecken.

Kamryn has definitely been the sickest of all the kids this winter. She gets hit the hardest whenever she picks up an illness. 2 weeks ago she came down with another horrible cough...only 1 week after she had a cough & then an ear infxn. One night she literally coughed from 7pm until 1am straight. We tried absolutely everything to relieve the cough...vicks on her feet, steamy showers, vicks on her chest, honey, benadryl, dehumidifier, sitting straight up, sitting by us...nothing worked. She was coughing so hard & so much that she would throw up every time she coughed. She threw up that night about 5-6 times. And she is such a tough little cookie. She just coughs, walks over to the toilet to throw up, & asks me to wipe her mouth afterword. She never cries & never complains, & usually gives us a smile too if you can believe it. But that night I felt so very terrible for her since she had just been so sick just the week before. We were in the steamy bathroom for the second time that night & I just looked at her & said "I'm so sorry that you're sick again, Kami. Oh how I wish you didn't have another cough." She just looked at me, her bottom lip jutted out, & she started sobbing & sobbing. I took her in my arms & just rocked & rocked her as we both sat on the toilet sobbing. Oh how my heart just broke for her that night. I just wanted to take that stinkin cough & give it to myself instead. A couple minutes later Eric walked in to find us both crying & he started to tear up as well. He just held her & rocked her as I gathered myself together. What a helpless feeling that is. My heart just ached for her. Eric ended up turning on a Barbie movie in our room & just sat with her to help take her mind off of coughing. She finally, finally fell asleep around 1 am.

And just when I think that one of the kids is getting better another one comes down with something else. Some days it is soooo depressing to be stuck in the house with sick kiddos & not going anywhere except to the dr. or the pharmacy. And then when they do get healthy I'm afraid that they're going to pick up something new! Eric laughs sometimes b/c my favorite saying these days is that if someone else gets sick "I'm going to LOSE it!". And somedays that is not at all far from the truth!! I can handle a lot...but somedays it just overwhelms me & I just want to run away from it all. But i don't. :)

And right now I am enjoying the moments when I don't hear anyone coughing or sneezing or crying or throwing up. Moments when every one of my kiddos are sleeping peacefully in their beds. I love checking in on them before I go to bed at night. I love to see how each one of them sleeps...in their own unique ways. Cayden on his back with his mouth wide open & sprawled all over his bed, Addyson all curled up usually with her head buried by her pillow & tons of stuffed animals, Kamryn laying on her side with her green bear, & Breckie laying on his tummy with his buns way up in the air. They are miracles. Precious miracles. I do not know when the coughing or the crying will begin again...but I am enjoying the calm between the storms. Or maybe if I'm really lucky it will be a really long calm this time.

Sometime when it's not so late I will post my dr trips & everybody's sicknesses during the month of January. I actually just wrote it all down last week so that in 20 years I can look back at all of this craziness & wonder how I managed to survive. :)

Soon too I will write about my Breckie boy...who just turned 11 months old a couple days agao. Today he took his first couple steps. He was so proud. And his sisters were equally as proud!