Sick kids and tired parents

It has truly been one heck of a winter cold season. It seems like every other week, we have been dealing with sicknesses. The last few weeks have been brutal, though. Carson and Caleb both ended up getting sick but with two separate types of cold. Two weeks ago, Carson ended up with a temperature and vomited just once on Sunday evening. We kept him home from daycare that Monday. He did great on Monday with no symptoms and was his happy self. Because it seemed like it was just a random event, we decided that he could go to daycare on Tuesday if he made it through the night without vomiting. He did, so we sent him to daycare. He did great on Tuesday, and Wednesday morning, he threw up randomly again. We picked him up from daycare and brought him home. At home, he didn’t act as if he was sick or if there was anything wrong with him. He played like normal, ate relatively normal, and was just his happy self. He didn’t vomit again, so we asked the daycare if he could go back to school if he didn’t vomit at all that evening or the next morning. They were okay with that, so we sent him back to school the next day (Thursday) and again he vomited, but this time it was much more and more than just once. We got him home, and unfortunately, this time, he continued to vomit throughout the night and into the next day. He was miserable all of Friday and could not keep anything down. Friday evening, he started showing signs that things were turning around. Though he still couldn’t eat much, he was able to keep some liquid down, which was a good sign.

The time from when Carson started having “symptoms,” Caleb also started getting higher temperatures and started to get a runny nose. Caleb’s temperatures would spike and then disappear for a few days and then spike again. By Friday evening, he was getting a consistently high temperature and a runny nose and cough. We alternated between Tylenol and Ibuprofen to keep his temperature from getting too high. Ibuprofen seemed to kick in much faster for him, so we were very thankful for that, which helped a ton at night when he was trying to sleep. By this last Tuesday, his fever finally broke, and he has been on the mend.

During this time, because both kids were sick with something different, we decided to try and keep them as separate as possible. Caleb and I hung out in the bedrooms for most of the weekend while my husband and Carson stayed in the living room. Once Carson stopped vomiting, we disinfected almost everything in our house, especially the toys. We washed all bedding material, wiped, sprayed all surfaces, and did everything we could to get rid of any virus that could be in our house. We have been fighting non-stop sicknesses this entire season, and thankfully, one of us has been on leave through most of it, but because Alex started work this week, we had to get rid of anything that could cause more colds in our house.

Caleb was supposed to start daycare full time this week too, but he stayed home because of his fever, stuffy nose, and cough. Alex began to back to work full time, so we no longer had one person home. Luckily, I can work from home when need be, so we have just been balancing being at home with a sick child and working as much as possible. Luckily Carson was able to go back to school and has loved being able to play with his friends again.

These sicknesses have been just the last of our long winter of colds. It feels like about every other week, at least one of them is sick at a time. Unfortunately, because the kiddos are in daycare, they tend to get sick a lot because they are with other kids all the time and constantly putting different toys in their mouths (at least when they are pretty little). The daycare does a great job at keeping everything as clean as possible and does their due diligence, but it is unavoidable.  It feels like Carson has had pretty much everything under the sun, including COVID, which thankfully was not bad for him. We try everything to keep him healthy, but it is what it is, and we continue to just do our best to balance sick kids, work, etc.  Everyone always tells me that this will just build our kids’ immunity and that as they get older, their bodies will be able to fight off sickness much quicker. I sure hope so because this is truly exhausting. We are so excited for the nice weather and getting the kids outside a lot more so that hopefully, the colds will lesson just a bit. We shall see. But for now, we continue to try and get our kids completely healthy. Caleb still has a lot of congestion but is sleeping much better right now, and Carson seems to be completely free of a cold (thank goodness). Things are on the mend for our family, and we are starting to get some much needed sleep and relaxation.