New Year's cold

Last week I reported that my tiniest girl had a fever and a bad case of yeast in her diaper region. We’re still battling the yeast. I’m thinking I’m going to have to call the pediatrician and tell him that even the cortisone/Lotrimin mixture is not working to completely get rid of it. I’m going to give it a couple more days to see if, by some magic, it manages to clear up. The fever finally went away after a few days, but my poor little peanut has had a bad cold ever since.

We headed to our lake house to ring in the New Year. We were hoping that we’d get some more snow and be able to go sledding. The bigger kids were very excited at the prospect, but unfortunately, there was no new snow in sight while we were there. Because the existing snow wasn’t deep enough to cover all the rocks on our usual sledding hill, I didn’t think it would be a great idea to hurl ourselves down the hill at top speed towards them. Instead we mostly vegged out, watched movies, played, colored, ate and vegged out some more. We watched the ball drop at 9 p.m., so that everyone could still get to bed at a decent hour. Because we’re party poopers like that. As it is, I didn’t even manage to make it to midnight on the west coast; I was in bed by 11:30 p.m. What a party animal!

Baby No. 4 didn’t share in much of the fun with us, though. Poor girl was miserable the whole time. She didn’t have much of an appetite. She’d eat a little bit of her bottle and then refuse the rest. Any attempt to give her solid foods and she’d toss everything onto the floor. The dogs were in heaven, but my tiny girl wasn’t having much fun. She didn’t want to play; she didn’t want to stand or crawl around. She just wanted to be held. She was pretty content as long as I was holding her, but she would wail the second I put her down. I could tell she really wasn’t feeling well when she fell asleep in my arms; something she hasn’t done since she was a newborn. Thankfully she was happy to nap in the pack ‘n play, and she still slept through the night.

There’s nothing worse than having a sick kid and not being able to make them feel better. Her little face was flush, her nose was pouring green goo, and her little moans and groans were heartbreaking. Thankfully she didn’t have a fever anymore, so I was pretty sure it wasn’t anything too serious. But still I wished there was something I could do to help her feel better. But since there wasn’t, I did my best to comfort her. We snuggled, and I rubbed her back. Although I’d never wish for any of them to be sick, it is nice how cuddly they get when they’re not feeling great. None of my kids are real big snugglers, so I take the snuggly moments whenever I can get them!

There’s still a steady stream of green goo coming out her nose, but she seems to be feeling much better. She’s back to crawling around after her brother and sisters, “talking” and being generally content. Thank goodness.

Here’s hoping it leaves our house without plaguing anyone else …