in other news...
this month started out with adam's first big cold. he had the sniffles before, a cold, i've had to suck some snot out of his nose. but i had NO idea what a true baby cold was like until this weekend.
our friday together started with waiting for some service people to come to our house who never came. (grrrr.) so when they didn't show, we went to enterprise and got a rental car-- finally-- after the bumper cars incident on tuesday. after getting the rental, we scooted to lowe's and i picked out some paint colors. my friend, sarah-- one of my best friends from college--, was coming to hang with adam and me while i painted our dining room, hallway and our bedroom if i had enough time. satisfied with my color choices, adam and i went home and had a fabulous friday-night-in together.
saturday morning, sarah arrived and spoiled adam with hugs and love all day while i painted the dining room. (she spoiled me too by giving me an extra set of arms!) we gabbed, adam chimed in with ah-ah, ah-ohhhh, and squeals when he felt it appropriate. i finished up the dinig room and adam's little sniffles took a turn for the worse... he had globs of yellow and green snot coming out of his nose and a dry, hacking cough. when i say hack, i do mean HACK. his little eyes were red and watering, and his nose dripped like a faucet. it broke my heart to see him like that, so we gave him a nice warm bath and put him down. i should have known when he barely touched his bedtime bottle, we'd be in for a long night...
as sarah and i caught up all night and tackled the hallway together-- have i mentioned how amazing she is?!-- we frowned and sighed every time, in his sleep, adam would hack and cough. i checked on him about a bazillion times while we were still up, attempted feeding him more-- he wouldn't have it-- and refilled his humidifier.
all night, he would hack and cry, hack and cry. i would rush into his room to check that he was still alive (of course he was alive, but you know...) and each time he'd have a giant snot bubble coming out of his nose, teary eyes, a rumbly nose. i would suck his nose out and wipe his little face and head back to bed, only to hear him cry out again in a few minutes. talk about a looooooooooooooooooong night....
he finally was "up" for the day around 8 this morning. but all day, he slept a ton. we watched the sopranos and took naps together on the couch. i kept the humidifier nearby and cuddled him all day. i let him take naps in his swing too so he'd be upright. and, at my mom's advice, i took him in the shower with me for the first time. i let it run awhile and got the bathroom all steamy and then we hopped in. if you ever have a sick baby, try this!! maybe everyone does this?, and it was just my first time, but he was finally able to BREATHE normally afterward. and tonight, instead of his normal bedtime bath, we took another steamy shower. i also inclined his mattress and said a prayer to the sleep gods that we don't have an instant replay of last night...
it is just SO hard watching him being sick. i HATE it. if we adults have all those symptoms, we feel like pure crap. we call in sick from work, drink hot tea, lay on the sofa, take nyquil and sleep/watch E! all day. well, maybe just me, but surely we all feel so terrible and whine about it. poor little adam can't say Mommy I feel TERRIBLE! but i can see it all over his red, puffy, snotty, teary, congested little face. and the worst thing is that there is NOTHING i can do. all i can do is cuddle him, keep him warm, keep the air from being dry, suck out his snot, etc. it's just too bad there isn't anything you can give a baby to alleviate cold symptoms when they're truly at their worst. (there isn't right?) i mean, you can't even use baby vick's anymore. ahhhh! torture for us both, i swear. luckily, despite all his napping, he was in pretty good spirits while awake. he would babble and play with toys in my lap. when he'd look at me and grin with a big snot bubble and a tear dripping from his red eye, it took everything i had not to hug him to pieces.
thank God sarah was here last night, reassuring me each time adam would bark from the bedroom that it was just a COLD, it was OK. if she wasn't here, not only would i not have gotten any rooms painted at all, i would have truly considered loading adam up in the car and going to find a doctor.... at 10pm on a saturday night. she also held him while i made warm bottles and went to walgreen's for saline nose drops, and wiped up his mucus-y spit up all day. each time he cried through the night, she offered to be the one to go check on him. of course, i'd never let a friend do that in the middle of the night, but just having her there made me feel so much better. i am so grateful!
instead of going to daycare tomorrow, adam's going to stay home from "school." first of all, if i had the symptoms adam has had, i wouldn't want to be stuffed in a car seat and taken to school, where i'd have to "play" and be around other people all day. i'd want to be safe and warm in my jammies, in my own house. and secondly, if another parent brought their baby to school with adam's same symptoms, i'd be pissed! so, he's not going. his Mamama (eric's mom) is coming early to spend the morning with adam at home until eric gets home from work around lunchtime. i know eric can't wait to see his little guy-- he's missed him and i know feels hand-tied not being here with our lil' buddy so sick and sniffly. we're all ready for daddy to come home, for sure.
some pre-sniffles photos:
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