Tough week!

I have to say that last week/weekend were probably one of the hardest weeks I've experienced in a while where dealing with my children have been concerned. Both Mallory and Ethan were taxing on me and I prayed daily that I would remain calm and that my frustration wouldn't overcome my patience with them.

Mallory started dealing with a fever on late Monday afternoon (about 99.5 under the arm). It fluctuated throughout the remainder of the day and when she woke up on Tues, it was about the same. On mid-Tues afternoon, though, it spiked to about 103.1 (under the arm), which, according to my pediatrician, is more like 104. She barely slept at all on Tuesday, only an hour in the morning, and I worked hard at getting her fever down so we could avoid any type of side effects that high fevers have. I stripped her clothes off, put cool cloths on her head, and gave her a bath in tepid water (while feeding Ethan on the bathroom floor!). Her fever cooled down considerably by Tuesday evening, which was good because I had tentatively scheduled an apt at 7:30pm in case she still had a high temp. She ended up crashing about 7pm and we checked on her periodically to make sure her temp didn't flare up again. But, around midnight, her fever shot back up to 104. We woke her up, stripped her clothes off, put cool cloths on her, and made sure her fever went back down. After about an hour, it was down again, but we had an awake girl. She ended up sleeping in the pack n' play in our room so we could keep an eye on her.

Meanwhile, Ethan had still been waking up at least 2 times in the night. I was pretty exhausted on Tuesday and especially on Wednesday because of my night with Mallory. On Wednesday, Mallory had a small temp, which gradually went away by the end of the day, but then she started with the whining. Oh, how she whined at EVERYTHING. I didn't get a nap on Wed and by Thurs (after waking up AGAIN with Ethan), I was pretty edgy. Fast forwarding to Friday, Mallory started refusing her food. She didn't eat anything for dinner and on Saturday, she only at a banana, a handful of grapes, and maybe two bites of oatmeal. And, of course, she continued with the whining. I had to put her in her room several times on Friday for inexcusable wining (well, is any whining excusable!!!). Patrick took her out on Saturday morning so I could get some rest, since Ethan still wouldn't sleep well. I started feeling sick on Saturday and by Saturday night (after we had company over for dinner), I had a fever and was excremely quesy and worried about my daughter who wouldn't eat and my son who wouldn't sleep.

So, on Saturday night, we tried a first. We put Ethan to bed on his tummy. He woke up about 1am and then slept until about 5:45 after a brief feeding. That was great! His disposition on Sunday was much better. Well, Mallory was still having issues on Sunday (though I was feeling much better) and lasted only about 15 minutes in the church nursery before she had to join us for the remainder of our Sunday morning (at the new members class with about 30 people in attendence...). She ate much better on Sunday afternoon and Sunday night and actually stayed in the nursery for the entire time at church!!!

AND then the GREAT news...the saving grace of the whole week...was that Ethan slept through the night last night!!! From 9pm to 5:30am, we didn't hear a peep from him. And then after he ate (and Lord, did he need to eat for my sake!!!), he slept for another hour!!! YEAH!!! And Mallory ate a huge breakfast this morning and ate her entire lunch. She's still a little whiney, but I think all of the fever, food aversion, and excessive whiny-ness may be because she's getting her incisors (I think...). *sigh*

After this post I'm planning on resting for a while. I'm tired, even though last night was the first time I had slept for 6 hours straight since AUGUST(!!!!).