Explosive weekend

Our weekend got off to an auspicious start, I must say. Actually, it all began on Friday morning, when Baby Boy woke up crying at 6:30 am. The Webmaster, as he usually does, went to get him. Then I heard the loud exclaimation of “Oh, crap!” coming from the nursery. I decided that I was still asleep and didn’t hear anything. Then the Webmaster called for backup. Baby Boy, during the night, had managed to vomit at one end of his crib and blow out of his diaper at the other end of the crib. And through all of it, he didn’t bother to wake up. Now, the vomit was crusted over and the poop was dry and coming off of him in flaky chunks.

The Webmaster gave him a get-cleaned-up bath in the kitchen sink while I stripped the crib and started a load of laundry. Baby Boy was quite upset – he wanted to nurse and go back to sleep – but he eventually got cleaned up and a snack. Thus began our weekend. The Webmaster came home early – taking some sick leave – to help with the kids. Baby Boy had a fever and was cranky, and the Munchkin was her usual whirling-dervish self. Did I mention that they are both teething? AGAIN?!? Yes, his upper incisiors are coming in, and she cut a bottom molar.

Saturday, Baby Boy’s fever finally broke, and we decided to go to the Cherry Blossom Festival as we had planned. Though we got a late start and only spent a couple of hours there, we had a good time. We got the Munchkin all dressed up in a kimono, she was really thrilled by the taiko drum playing, and she got to play in the Fountain and have ice cream. Baby Boy was his normal, roll-with-the-punches self. The best part about the day was when I ran into my high school Japanese teacher at the Festival! I hadn’t seen her since before I was married, though we exchange Christmas cards. She had her two kids with her, whom I had never met (her daughter is just a little less than a year younger than the Munchkin, while her son is 5). It was a wonderful surprise for me. (To see pictures from the Festival, check out the Gallery.)

However, Baby Boy continued for the rest of the weekend to explode out of his diaper – including while we were at a family dinner at a Chinese restaurant in Bellevue Saturday evening. Fortunately, I had a spare change of clothes for him and a helpful Grandma on hand. After he exploded in the church nursery Sunday morning (again, I had back-up clothes in the diaper bag), I finally called the pediatrician’s office to get some advice. The on-call doctor called me back (on his cell phone – I could hear him getting into his car and the “buckle your seatbelt” chime going off) and basically told me that although I thought this was all teething-related, he thought it was viral, and that I needed to let it just run its course, unless he became dehydrated. In the meantime, stuff the kid with rice and bananas and sweet potatoes – anything binding. I initially called to get the thumbs-up on giving him some Yobaby yogurt – he’s 8 and a half months old and per their rules, dairy can commence at nine months – but the doctor vetoed it. It wasn’t so much the dairy that he was vetoing – it was introducing a new food to a sick baby that he didn’t like.

My gut still says that this is all teething-related. If it was really viral, I think the Munchkin would have it by now. The doctor just glossed over that fact, and said, “Well, keep an eye on her, just in case.”

And the funny thing is, Baby Boy is totally his normal self again. Except for his normal fussy moments – hungry, tired, getting whacked on the head by his sister – he’s behaving completely normally. He does get quite upset after exploding, though. He hates having a poopy diaper anyway, and this is poop times a hundred, because it usually involves a wardrobe change. But other than that, with his fever gone, he’s happy once again. He’s had colds before. It wasn’t until it was gone that he became happy again. I just don’t think that this is viral.

Regardless, we’re waiting it out. But the weather was wonderful this weekend, the Webmaster mowed the lawn, the Munchkin got out to play, and I’ve signed all the paperwork to become a Stampin’ Up demonstrator and now get to wait for my starter kit to arrive (which means 6 new stamp sets, paper, pastels, and a whole lot of other goodies). I hope that everyone else had a good weekend. Or at least, one filled with less poop than mine.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 24th, 2006 at 12:47 am and is filed under Children, Family.
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