stuff and RSV (edited)

Our keyboard was broken, but the new one arrived today. The few Facebook status updates I'd done this week were in the Kylo web browser with a keyboard you use the mouse to point and click. It was painful to click every letter in even a few sentences or to log into a site.

Please pray for Kellyn. She has RSV which is a respiratory infection that is serious in babies. At this point she doesn't need the hospital.

It started with the same cold Ryan and Alyna had last week, but they got better in about 3 days, and hers had hung on for 5. She started wheezing and not eating as much on Wednesday which is what worried me. I took her to the doctor, and sure enough, it's RSV.

The doctor said that as long as she can breathe and is drinking enough to have a wet diaper she is fine to stay at home. If she goes more than 6 hours without a wet diaper we have to go to the hospital for fluids. Right now she seems content to drink about 2-3 oz (half her normal bottle) at a time. So we've been giving her half a bottle every couple hours instead of her normal feeding schedule.

Tuesday and Wednesday nights she had woken up every hour or two, and she didn't nap well during the day either. After just one dose of medicine and one breathing machine treatment, she only woke up 2 times Thursday night. I changed her wet diaper and fed her a few ounces each time and she would go right back to sleep. She has also taken long naps today which I know will help her body fight this off quickly.

Ryan and Alyna are being their normal 2 year old selves. They start whining when I have to pay so much attention to "baby sister", but they love her long naptime in the morning because Mommy plays with them. This morning we played hide and seek. Alyna especially liked to count and then seek, and Ryan liked to hide with me. They were taught this game by their older friends Madison and Casey who come over to play frequently. Ryan and I would crouch behind a big chair or the ottoman and there were lots of screaming giggles when Alyna finally found us. It's a good thing Kellyn is a sound sleeper back in her room.

Alyna has started to protest her afternoon nap... yet she sleeps for an hour and a half to two hours. Ryan is always ready to go down, but only sleeps a little over an hour, and when he wakes up and sneaks out of the room he gets some precious Mommy cuddle time all by himself.

Kellyn's big new thing is to give kisses... (germs and all)... She grabs my face with both hands and plants her open mouth on my cheek and says "ahhhh". Then I turn and kiss her cheek and say "ahhh". She does it repeatedly until something else distracts her. Such a sweet girl...

I should also mention that 2 weeks of waiting on a part for a dishwasher (because they ordered the wrong part the first time) is really killing my motivation to cook. I just want to eat out and not have constant pile of dishes to wash, but I can't even do that because of sick kids...

I thank God for all my blessings and hope to persevere through the trials.

too much at once

Sometimes too many things happen at one time and chaos reigns for a few minutes.

It's 8:30 am and Kellyn is crying because she's hungry. She is also because she is tired from waking up an hour earlier than normal after going to bed half an hour late. Her crying escalates as I prepare her food.

Just as I pick her up to go eat, Alyna informs me she needs to poop. So I put Kellyn back down and take Alyna to the bathroom and get her situated. Since there's no telling how long it will take, I go ahead and take Kellyn to her high chair. She's crying so much though that she won't eat.

So Kellyn is now crying very loudly, Alyna shouts that she pooped in the potty and needs me to come wipe her, and Ryan walks up and says "yuck" showing me his messy hands. Apparently a toy ball mysteriously landed in the bowl of yogurt and he got yogurt all over his hand during its retrieval.

UGH!!!

So I leave the crying baby, and take Ryan to the bathroom with me. I turn the water on for him to rinse his hands off while I wipe Alyna's bottom and get her situated. I finish washing Ryan's hands, give Alyna her sticker, and finally return to a screaming Kellyn.

It takes a pacifier, diaper change, and some songs to calm Kellyn down enough that she would actually eat something. Then she went down for her nap without much of a fuss. Poor girl...

new (old) toys

It's lots of fun every time I pull out a toy from the twins days as babies and get to see Kellyn learn to play with it too. This walk-around table was one of their favoites, and will definitely be one of Kellyn's favorites too.

Her first time in it... and she's up on her tip toes trying to move around.






And of course the twins found a way to make it fun for everyone...

Long night

Last night was one of many long nights we've had juggling 3 kids under the age of 3. At least when a child is sick I can understand it... not that it's any easier on my body.

We've all had colds this week, and I thought we were all getting over it, but Ryan's cough became progressively worse throughout the day yesterday.

Last night he coughed a lot at bedtime of 7:45, and went to sleep only to wake up again at: 9:30, 11:10, and 12:09. When he didn't stop coughing by 12:30 Barry moved to the couch in the living room and I brought Ryan into our bed so I didn't have to get up every time he needed to sit up and cough or take a drink.

We had a humidifier running right beside the bed, rubbed vapoRub on his chest, and let him eat spoonfuls of raw honey at regular intervals. He didn't have any fever, but we did give him a little tylenol to help with the pain in his throat. The poor kid just kept coughing until after 2:15 am.

He finally fell asleep for real around 2:30, and Kellyn woke up at 2:40. It took Barry 20 minutes to put her back to sleep, only for her to wake up again at 3:40. I fed her and then she seemed wide awake and just wouldn't fall asleep until 4:30. She wasn't really crying, just fussing enough for me to have to keep going in to sooth her a bit every 5-10 minutes.

Then I got to sleep until 5:19 when Ryan woke up coughing again. He coughed off and on until Alyna and Kellyn both woke up at 6:30 am.

Kellyn Sits Up

I can't believe that at only 5 months and 3 weeks old Kellyn has started sitting up on her own. She's still learning how to lean toward things without falling, but she's made great progress just since yesterday. She seems so ready to go run and play with her older siblings. I don't want her to grow up too fast, but it's exciting every time they hit a new developmental milestone.

Alyna thinks it is pretty cool that the baby is sitting up... just wait until Kellyn starts crawling.