Tag: sick child

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Of Fevers and Fiascos and Family Homes

Post author By Rebecca Cuneo Keenan
Post date April 7, 2010

DAILY SNACK

After a solid week of two sick kids,

We got to enjoy a relatively healthy Easter weekend.

Then BAM!

It’s 2am, of course, and Colum is calling out in a panic.

He’s burning up and we practically have to pry his mouth open to get him to take some Tylenol.

He winds up spending most of his near-sleepless night in bed with us.

Which is great because I just got Irene to stop coming in at 5am.

All day long, my boy is burning up.

And groggy and lethargic.

And Irene is needing to get out,

Both running around wildly and demanding to be held.

It was easily one of the most exhausting days of my life.

PLUS.

It was the day we were supposed to close on our first-ever house.

But then the tenants didn’t vacate on time,

So the date got bumped forward two days.

UNTIL.

They did move out just in the nick of time and the keys were dropped off at 4:30pm.

At the lawyers office in Markham,

Which is a good one and a half hour drive in rush hour,

Which I know because I did it the day before to sign the papers.

But wait!

Our lovely and talented real estate agent picked up the keys and delivered them to Ed,

Who in turn arranged for someone to sit with the kids after they went down.

So we got to see our home together.

And it needs a lot of work.

It is in serious disprepair.

I knew that.

So it’s hard to believe,

How much I love it.

I mean, LOVE-love.

All we could see was potential and character and our family growing up there.

And it’s ours.

Tags sick child, sickness, the house

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Three Nights in A Row!

Post author By Rebecca Cuneo Keenan
Post date March 31, 2010

DAILY SNACK

It started on Sunday afternoon,

When Colum hung out in bed rather than visiting with company,

And threw up all over his bedding and himself.

He then threw up a couple times that night,

Which was to be expected.

The next day he seemed better.

Low on energy, but in good spirits.

He ate a bit and kept in down.

Until the middle of the night,

When WHAMO!

More vomit.

And then again yesterday he seemed much, much better.

Cue 2:30am and VOMIT ALL OVER THE BED!

What is this?!

Not one solitary episode of vomitting has managed to hit bare flooring,

Or any other surface that doesn’t involve vast amounts of laundry.

And only at night?

Yesterday, Irene started to run a fever and I thought, “Oh no.”

She’s a bit sick, sure, but no vomit.

None.

Has anybody ever experienced this strain of nocturnal regurgatation before?

I mean in their kids, not after a night at the bar.

(Because I’ve done the field research on the latter, thanks.)

Tags sick child, sickness

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The Still of the Night

DAILY SNACK

Sitting up late at night,

Pushing myself to keep working through my fatigue,

I hear a wail.

“Mommy!”

Not again.

After a day of keeping what little he ate down,

Colum is throwing up in his sleep.

So I scoop him up and let him finish in the bathroom.

We wipe off his face and hair and put on fresh pajamas.

Dad changes the bedding,

And we brush his teeth.

Then we cuddle and whisper words of comfort.

And all the world stands still and deadlines don’t matter and all there is this moment.

Tags sick child, sickness

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Okay, I’ll admit it. I kind of like it when my kids are sick. Well, when the three-year-old is sick, anyway. (Nobody likes a sick baby.) I’m not talking about anything serious or drawn out and I’m certainly not talking about anything that involves the loss of bodily fluids. But a low-grade fever? And maybe a scratchy throat? C’mon, it’s not so bad.

Tags sick child