My Sickling

Right before Christmas, Anders came down with what we think was the flu.  Luckily (and amazingly) no one else in the house was infected.  But poor Anders threw up for 4 days.  It was pathetic and a little annoying.  Annoying because Anders didn't know how to make it to the bathroom...or even a hard surfaced floor.  He would just puke where ever he was.  Then Fritz, being the dog he is, would try to help us clean it up which just made Hans and I want to throw up.  At one point Anders threw up, Fritz came to clean up and then Anders threw up on Fritz.  I threw everyone in the bathtub.  This made for an eventful 4 days.

He was so tired that he fell asleep on the kitchen floor.  Being the excellent mom that I am, I covered him and let him sleep there for over an hour.

Why We Don't Let Our Husbands Make Childrearing Decisions

The title of this post could also be "Things That Make You Go EWWW".  So, beware.

I love my husband.  He is a wonderful, caring, funny and uncontrollable guy.  He is rarely ever serious, unless he is talking about theology.  Without even trying, he has rubbed of on our children with his carefree personality.  My husband is also very smart.  But I find even very smart men make very bad decisions when it comes to children.  Case in point, the other day, John came downstairs screaming that I needed to look at Gus.  When I came upstairs, I found Gus in his highchair with Nutella all over his face and a sippy cup of chocolate milk in his hand.  The Nutella had evidently been on a graham cracker that was no where to be found and Gus seemed very happy with his new food choices.  Now, this chocolate milk was no ordinary chocolate milk.  Hans makes chocolate milk so dark and so chocolaty my stomach churns just looking at it.  It is as if you were drinking a melted chocolate bar.  I looked at Hans in disbelief and Hans just smiled and told me that Gus loved it and that's all that mattered.  As there was nothing I could do about it, the damage was done.  I just left Hans to clean up the mess and put Gus to bed.

The next part of this story is key as to why we don't give our husbands free reign over things like this.  Sometime in the middle of the night Gus threw up.  A LOT.  And, since we didn't hear anything and he never cried, he just slept in the mess.  All night.  The next morning Hans went in there to get Gus, and immediately noticed the horrible smell coming from the boys room.  Evidently, regurgitated graham crackers with Nutella and chocolate milk smell like dog poop.  But, my wonderful husband knew it was all his fault and graciously gave Gus a bath and washed his sheets.  Gus actually needed a couple of baths before the smell went away. 

I would hope that this experience will keep Hans from giving our children horrible food combinations or just horrible food in general...but probably not.  As I said before, even the smartest men make horrible decisions when it comes to kids.

(Hans here...My decision was awesome and I don't regret it in the slightest.)

Getting Back to Normal

We've had an exhausting week or so in the Fiene house.  Both of the boys got sick and Hans and I struggled to stay well ourselves.  Poor little Gus was hit the worst with a fever that lasted four or five days, runny/stuffy nose, upset tummy and swollen eyes.  I think the worst part for him was his inability to suck on his pacifier.  He loves playing with his pacifier during the day, but it is a necessity to get him to sleep at night.  I have to admit we had a rough couple of nights since Gus would only sleep 49 minutes at a time...yep, I got a whole 49 minutes of sleep before he would start to scream again.  However, I'm so glad that this whole thing only lasted a week and nobody was sick enough to warrant anything other than home remedies.  We have a couple sets of friends here who each have several children and in both families the whole family got pretty sick. To make matters worse, after it circulated the family the first time, it went for round two.  I had a hard enough time with two sick kids I can't even imagine having 6 or 7 kids and being sick myself.  I also just found out today that Hans' cousin Anneliese is very sick and in a children's hospital diagnosed with H1N1 and pneumonia.  Our thoughts and prayers are with Anneliese.

On a lighter note, here are some pictures of the boys.

Doesn't he look HUGE in this picture?

It is ridiculiously hard to get a picture of John these days.

I think Hans was trying to give Gus something to play with, but he still wasn't feeling well and started crying.

John decided he needed to pick out his own outfit.  Hans told him he needed long sleeves so he came back with a sleeveless shirt and a long sleeve shirt and wanted to wear both.  I'm actually surprised he picked two shirts that matched pretty well.

Gus loves chewing on his pacifier.

Only my son would wear a long sleeve fleece with no pants.