Cooties and Cuties

We've been sick lately. All of us. It feels never-ending. I keep telling myself it HAS to end soon, but the cooties keep proving me wrong.

On March 1st, Fin and I both woke up sick. He had a fever and I felt like I'd been gargling glass in my sleep. The pediatrician thought we both had strep, but Fin's test came back negative. My doctor gave me antibiotics for a sinus infection and we both went home to sleep it off. A week later, I woke again feeling like I'd been hit by a truck and my doc said I'd developed bronchitis on top of my sinus infection and it was time to "pull out the big guns."

In the meantime, Fin had gotten better, but poor Greta had so much green snot everywhere that her little cheeks were raw. Greta eventually got pink eye (which Fin had had in February) and even though the doctor said we could stop giving the eye drops when it cleared up, it came back for her 3 times in 2 weeks.

Before her pink eye was gone, we had both kids back to the doctor for another random fever for Fin. This time he had an ear infection and strep throat and by now Greta had a double ear infection. Luckily, her pink eye finally cleared up.

It seemed that we were going to mkae it out of March and in to April with all of us finally on the mend, but on April 2nd, Greta got Fin's strep throat and I was feeling congested and scratchy again too.

You'd think we never heard of washing hands with all the cootie sharing we were doing, but I swear, I was ready to have us all gargling bleach! (Okay, maybe not taking things that far...)

Anyway, this past weekend we were FINALLY all well at the same time. One of Greta's classmates had a birthday party and we all went to play in the bounce house, see their little friends and have fun.

Fin woke up yesterday morning with a fever again. $^(&*^*$%#$ bounce house being an incubator for all things germy!

The poor kiddo moved from the bed to the living room floor to watch some TV with Dave, then feel asleep watching video games. Dave took Greta to HaHa's in the afternoon and the boy and I chilled on the couch for hours. Finally at about 6:30, he stood up, announced he was going to bed for the night and wanted company.

This boy NEVER goes to bed willingly like that, and even when he's sick, he usually has a few hours of manic energy after sleeping all day. He wouldn't let me read him any stories and didn't even want to play DS games. He was out for the night by 7pm and I was sure he'd want to party halfway through the night. Sure enough, he woke up around midnight, asked me to read him a couple of stories and said he was hungry. He ate half an apple and went right back to sleep, waking up this morning at 8am only to go lay back down on the couch.

Through all their colds in the last 6 weeks, both kids have still been incredibly sweet and cuddly. Greta zonked out in the car on the way home from HaHa's last night, so both babies were asleep by 7:30pm. This is very, VERY odd for our house and Dave and I almost didn't know what to do with an evening to ourselves. Almost.

Greta did, however, start the morning at 5am today. She announced that she had to use the potty (we've been diaper-free in our house for about a month! It's amazing!) and then when I realized she was not going back to bed easily, I asked her if she wanted to cuddle with me in Finny's bed for a while. (He was sleeping next to Dave in our bed as usual.)

She agreed and I tried to doze while she rested next to me. After a little while of laying silent but awake next to me, she gave me a little wake up treat.

"Once upon a time, there was a little boy named Finny. And his mommy name is (mumbled whisperings) and his daddy name is (mumble mumble) and he have a sister name Baby Greta! And his daddy name is... Daddy!"

And then singing. "a b c d e f g..."

She does the whole alphabet many, many times a day and is so proud of herself.

I am not a fan of all the cooties we've been passing around and I really hope we'll all be well very soon, but when the trade off is sweet snuggles with my babies, it's almost worth it.

Wait, I can do the snuggles without the cooties!