Putting Things in Perspective

At 5am on Friday morning, I woke up to Amelia crying, and when I went to feed her, she was burning hot, so I took her temperature, and it was almost 102'F. Being a first time mom, I panicked, and consulted my "What to Expect the First Year" book to see what to do, and then stripped off her pajamas and gave her a dose of motrin to lower the temperature. I called in to work to let them know I was going to have to take a day off, then we both went back to sleep.

Amelia woke up at 10am and then the fun began! She spent the whole day screaming and crying, and was drooling like crazy and biting whatever she could get her mouth on. To make it worse, she only took a 1/2 hr nap all day, instead of her normal 2-3 hrs of naps a day. By the time she went to bed around 9pm, Austin and I were both exhausted. So my sister-in-law Shelly calls around 10pm, and asks me how my day was. I said, "Well, it's been the worst day of my life!" And she says, "Me too!" Shelly always has good stories, so I said, "You tell me yours, and then I'll tell you mine."

So Shelly tells me how her 3 year old is sick with a stomach virus and is so dehydrated that he almost needed to be hospitalized. Also, their 12 yr old son Austin's leg was injured at school last week (I think he ran into a fence, and a screw punctured his knee) and it is now infected and massively swollen). Then, their 14 year old, Zachary, also came down with the stomach virus, and is throwing up. Shelly's husband Jim (my brother) came home from work, also with the stomach virus. To top it all off, Shelly has 8 month old Sophie to deal with. Their other 12 year old, Randy isn't sick at the moment, but only because he had the bug last week. So Shelly has to take care of 4 sick or injured people! Shelly's a nurse, so everybody is in really capable hands, but wow! I thought I had it bad with 1 teething baby, but Shelly has to deal with a lot more than me.

Compared to what Shelly has to deal with, this is nothing...but it was still a rough weekend... Amelia was still crabby and miserable all day Saturday and today. Our nerves were shredded from the constant crying, and I was exhausted from getting up with her every 1-2 hours all night. She finally calmed down tonight, and went to bed at 8pm...a reasonable hour. Before she fell asleep, I saw what looked like one of her top front teeth just about ready to poke out...so hopefully I will have some new toothy pictures to post soon!