At the End of the Rope

... and hanging on by a thread. The story goes something like this... last Wednesday, Chase comes down with ear infection #4 (along with an ENT referral for ear tubes). But the fun doesn't stop there, because that would be too easy, right? On top of the ear infection, he has a nasty virus causing a high fever with temps of 103-104 degrees. At night, Chase wakes up every 2-3 hours burning up with a fever. During the day, Chase cries, screams, and refuses to eat due to ear pain and loss of appetite. At the end of the day, I uncork a bottle of wine to ease the pain. Take this scenario, repeat for 5 days, and that pretty much brings you up-to-date.

It's like I've reverted back to the newborn stage with my helpless, Little Chasey. He finally broke his fever last night, but is still very sick and wore out from the whole ordeal. He's extremely snotty and congested at the same time, and still has very little appetite. He still cries alot, and even when he's not crying, the sound of crying is stuck in my head, so there's truly no escape. I kid you not when I say that he is losing his voice from all the crying. If that doesn't break your heart, I don't know what will. My nerves are all but gone, my patience is running thin, and I don't even know what it's like to sleep longer than a 2-hour stretch of time.

And the best news of all, today Braedyn has started to get a runny nose and is slightly congested. So you see, once Chase gets better in a day or so, the fun begins All. Over. Again. I honestly think that if I had a third child, I'd most likely end up in a looney bin... no joke.

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We managed to get out this weekend to go to a Kids Event in a nearby city. It wasn't all that great, but when you're cooped up inside with a sick child, anything outdoors quickly becomes a fabulous adventure.

There were free firemen hats for the kids, and as soon as Braedyn got his hat, he never took it off. He loved it and looked so proud to be wearing it. It was pretty cute.

Here is Braedyn testing out the firetruck. He's so serious when he's working, huh?

Later that evening, Braedyn was wearing his hat and pushing around his own toy firetruck. I thought it was cute and told Ben to grab the camera and take a picture. The snapshot above is Ben's handiwork. Apparently, getting Braedyn's foot in the picture qualifies as "a picture of Braedyn and his truck".

I finally had to step in and get a good picture before the moment was gone.


This is a picture of Chase when he finally started to show signs of life yesterday afternoon. What was it that did the trick, you ask? Chase was reading through one of Daddy's investment books. Apparently, he also thinks the current state of the financial market is a joke.

So after all is said and done, I sit here with my glass of wine - oh precious glass of wine, how I love you so - and wonder if Chase will start crying in another 15 minutes... as he has done every 15-20 minutes since I laid him down for the night. Isn't it wierd how some type of stressful event occurs every time I try to get back on the weight loss wagon. Well, maybe that's not entirely true, but work with me here... I'm seriously trying to justify my daily caloric intake of wine and m&m's!!