On the mend?

I put a question mark because as most of you probably know, I am ridiculously superstitious.

Natalie's stomach flu lasted about 24 hours. Fever, vomiting on Thursday, then Friday she was fine. Kept her on a bland diet until Sunday, and so far she's holding her own. Of course she tried to get out of eating her dinner Sunday "my tummy hurts too much", but when offered junk as a test, she was all for it. Yeah.... She needs to realize I was a kid once too, and I know ALL the tricks. Ask Mitz. :-)

Oliver is finally doing better. He seemed to be getting better Thursday evening into Friday, but then relapsed hard on Friday. By Saturday morning, he was lethargic, fussing constantly, skin flaking, and a dry diaper for about three hours. I tried calling his doctor's office, didn't think they had Saturday hours, but thought I could get the answering service to get his pediatrician to call back. Held for 7 minutes, then figured if they are that backed up, it might be a while for a call back, and they'd probably send us to the ER, so off Oliver and I went. We were there for about 4 hours. They were wonderful - took us back right away and checked constantly. He had IV fluids (amazing how quickly he perked up a bit), some blood tests (looking for infection, found none), Zofran for nausea, then they finally let him have some Pedialyte. The poor kid was so desperate for something at that point, that in the few seconds it took for our nurse to tell me "Only give him half, then pause and see if he keeps it down" (they have pre-filled nursettes, 2 oz.), I looked down to see how much he drank, and it was drained. I had to pry it out of his mouth. They gave him two more after waiting a bit after each, and I guess he figured out that he wasn't going to get more quickly, so by the time he downed the third, he clutched that empty nursette and wouldn't let it go until he got a fourth. That's my boy!

So, Pedialyte and bland diet through this morning. I followed up with his pediatrician today. I was told to start half formula/half water, bland foods, nothing chunky, and if he tolerates that, to move to full formula tomorrow. If he holds all that tomorrow, then we can start working back to his regular diet. They weighed him, and based on his weight a month ago, I think he lost about a pound, pound and a half. :-(

After his afternoon nap today, he was visibly better. Still clingy and fussy at times, but getting into things, wreaking havoc, which was most welcome! At bedtime, he caught a second wind, and has figured out a new way to torment me. He started grinding his teeth together, hard, and it is the worst sound. I usually tell him "no no", and kind of put my finger in between his teeth (risky business with our little vampire). So tonight, he started grinding while giving me the most devilish grin, and laughing his fool head off. I gave up on the "no nos" and just stopped looking at him. So he laid there in my arms, grinding, laughing, grinding, laughing, grinding laughing. Realized I wasn't going to cave, then he started tapping my shoulder. I finally looked at him. Grin. Grind. Laugh. He's a handful! :-)

Oh, one other funny from when Natalie was sick. I set her up on the sofa in the family room, and when Oliver woke up from his nap on Thursday, she asked me to block off the sides near the table so he couldn't harass her. He tried moving the barricades, gave up. Less than ten minutes later, he figured out he could just crawl through the center of the table. Made a beeline for her stuffed animals, tapped her leg, just generally being a pesky little brother!