Barnabas Monkeypants

Let’s skip the funny stuff and get right to the nitty gritty…

We learned this week that Henry can get sick. Really sick. Mucus running down his face onto his shirt sick.

On Tuesday, Henry’s nanny Silvia called Kristen to say that Henry was cranky and whiney and not eating very much. That afternoon, the three of them went to see the doctor where, instead of acting sick and being sniffly, he charmed the doctor. (Again.) He didn’t have an ear infection and the doctor said that he merely had a cold. Back home they went, off to eat and nap.

Later that night, though, the sniffles got worse, he got crankier, and he slept very little (which meant that Kristen and I slept even less). On Wednesday, I stayed home from work and Henry didn’t go to the nanny share (his usual Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday), and together we were alternately happy (when we were both a little rested) and miserable (when we were both hungry and tired).

Last night, Kristen and Henry slept on the guestroom bed (which is much stiffer than our terrible bed). This was done because it was easier to prop the baby up at an angle (makes breathing easier) and have him close by just in case he needed some soothing. I slept in our horrible, lumpy bed, alone. The cats ran up and down the hallway all night — I suspect they thought Kristen and I were fighting and are probably preparing for the divorce and nasty custody hearing. I tried reassuring them that everything was fine, that Henry was just sick, but I could tell they were a little wary of that explanation.

I have to say, it’s not easy taking care of a sick baby for a few reasons. One, Henry doesn’t yet understand the concept of blowing his nose. As I explained to him on several occasions, if he only could figure out to clear the boogers out of his nose without me going in with an elaborate Japanese instrument, he’d be a much happier young man.

Two, Henry couldn’t grasp the idea that if his nose is stuffed up, he’d have to breathe out of his mouth. When he was drinking out of his bottle, after about 5 or 6 seconds, he’d start screaming. I didn’t figure it out until his next feeding that he couldn’t breathe (nose plugged, mouth full of latex nipple) and unsure what else to do, he started to cry. So what I did in subsequent feedings was, while cradling him with my left arm, I held the bottle with four fingers of my right hand and kept my pinkie finger free to, after the count of 4, open up his mouth for him, allowing him to breathe. I felt like I was playing Operation, and the wrong (or delayed) move would be met with a loud buzz (cry).

Three, Henry refused to nap. Lately, he’s been taking three long naps (two 1-hours and one 3-hour) during the day. On Wednesday, he slept all of 2 hours total during the day. I would rock him to sleep, place him in his crib, walk away, and before I could catch my breath, he was awake. When I’m sick, there’s nothing I like to do more than sleep. But not our stubborn boy.

And four, it’s heartwrenching to see your child ill and know that there’s nothing you can really do about it. We gave him some Tylenol to help with any aches he may have, but there isn’t much else you can do. He doesn’t have anything that would be made better by antibiotics and it’s been recently shown that cold medicine for infants is not a great thing. So we just sit there and try and make him happy and comfortable and we know that, pretty soon, he’ll be better and the only liquid streaming from his face will be drool.

I never thought I’d say this, but I can’t wait until it’s just drool.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 22nd, 2009 at 9:27 pm and is filed under What We've Learned. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.