Sick and tired

Oh my goodness.  SEND HELP!!!  We are still sick.  It has been such a rough time.  Last Monday Turtle was diagnosed with croup and prescribed prednisolone syrup - friends, that is AWFUL stuff.  I couldn't get it down him without him gagging it back up.  Luckily the two doses I managed to get into his stomach seemed to help with the inflammation and his croupy cough went away.  The fever stayed for both kids, though, so we went back to the doctor on Wednesday, the fifth day of the fever.  The doctor was convinced it was viral, and asked me to check in on Friday if they were still sick.  By Friday, the fever was minimal, although a nice runny-nosed coughing cold had settled in for the weekend (and beyond!).

In the meantime, we enjoyed a fun time with friends at a huge local pumpkin patch, complete with mini-corn maze, hay bale maze, giant hay bale pyramid, a corn pit, and cool bikes, trikes, and quadricycles to ride around.  Neat.  On Monday, we went to ANOTHER pumpkin patch, Turtle LOVED all the tractors.  He spent the whole time climbing up and down on each tractor, trying out each lever and button and switch to see if he could get the tractor going so he could drive it, his tongue hanging absent-mindedly out of his mouth.  He tends to stick out his tongue when he's really concentrating, which is darn cute.  Tadpole spent most of the day crying.  OMG, she was cranky.  Sooooooo cranky.  She cried over every little thing, all day long.  I almost lost my mind.

Tuesday they went to preschool, still coughing and snotty but otherwise fine.  But at lunchtime today, the preschool called to say Tadpole had a fever.  Again.  After 6 days of fever last week.  Sigh.  They were sweet enough to let her take her nap there so I could get some stuff done before picking her up (thank goodness, after them being home all last week, I am WAY behind on housework), but when I showed up at 2:30, her fever was 104.  Not that you would know it, she was out in the yard running around with friends.

I called the doctor and managed to get in right away for an appointment, and what do you know.  Both ears look bad, despite her not complaining about any ear pain.  So finally, 12 days into this rotten experiment in illness, we have an antibiotic.  I am, like my doctor, not excited about using antibiotics unless they are necessary (and unlike my mother, who thinks an antibiotic is good for any and every minor cold that comes along).  But I think we've reached the point of needing it, and I am happy that it is an option.  Whew.

Well, since I also have caught this same nasty little bug, I am going to go take some nyquil and hit the hay.  Good night, blogland.