Cycle of sickies

Remember how we used to "lock down" for RSV season so that our premature babies wouldn't run the risk of getting sick? Yeah, I'm kinda wishing for those days right about now!

Just since school started, we've dealt with colds, vomiting, impetigo, more colds, more vomiting, four simultaneous cases of strep throat, and—as if that weren't enough—last week Lucy was hospitalized for pneumonia!

Thankfully, she had to stay only a little more than 24 hours, as she was not exactly a pleasant patient (despite her sparkly dress and unicorn sticker):

With our first trip to the hospital since the NICU behind us, I was hoping for a little break from illness. But not long after the kids got to school today, I got a call from the nurse, saying that Dahlia had a temperature of 101.7. At my mom's urging, I took Dahlia straight from school to the doctor. Diagnosis: strep!

Here we go again ...

Pass the Pedialyte

This week the Fab Four and I were laid low by a nasty tummy bug. This is the fourth time for the babies to be sick: They had a cold in August, roseola in September, another cold in November, and now this. Each time, it's been hard to care for all of them at once, but this time has been the most difficult to date.

For one, babies give you little to no warning that they are going to vomit. Therefore, they can crawl up to you, sweet as can be, and suddenly BARF! All over you. The resulting mess is not their fault, though, because another problem is that little ones cannot aim their puke. In the past few days, we have not only had to do a lot more laundry—theirs and ours—but also Ted (aka Super Daddy) has had to clean up vomit from the table, the carpet, the couch, the linoleum, the wall, the gate, a pack 'n' play, a crib, shoeboxes, and even a drycleaning bag! Each new incident would set off a circus, as we frantically tried to decide what to do first: grab some rags to soak up vomit, change our clothes, clean up whichever baby got sick (as well as any other baby that was in the line of fire), or keep all of the babies from crawling around in the mess.

The worst part of it all was that there just wasn't enough of me to go around. At one point, all of the babies were miserable and crying for me to pick them up. As I would hold one close and feel him or her relax, three others were tugging on my jeans, wanting the same attention. How do you choose who gets to be in Mommy's arms? I couldn't. I just had to rotate who got to be in my lap, temporarily ignoring the cries of the others so that one child could feel the comfort of being close to Mommy. A friend of mine speculated that this must have been heart-wrenching. Yes. Yes, it was.

Thankfully, Ted was able to take a day off work yesterday to run things around here while I was feeling my yuckiest. This also allowed me to concentrate on spending quality time with the babies, who were also still feeling puny. Ted is such a wonderful helper—I can't imagine how I'd cope without him! And now that the rest of us are on the mend, we are praying that Daddy manages to stay healthy. The entire family needs to be well in order to enjoy the babies' first birthday next week!

'Tis the season

October means Homecoming, and all year I've been looking forward to taking the Fab Four to their first Homecoming Fair. In fact, I was so excited that I even had a friend pick up four matching college tees (not cheap!) so that the babies would be appropriately decked out.

What was I thinking?! Not only does RSV season start this month (running through April), but also H1N1 seems to be everywhere. Both viruses could pose a life-threatening risk to my 33-weekers, who have not been vaccinated against either one. After remembering this tiny detail, we ultimately decided to stay home.

Unfortunately, this will be the story of our lives for the next several months. If you plan on visiting us during this time, we have just a few requests:

If you are sick or have been in the 5 days leading up to your scheduled visit, or if anyone in your family has been sick during that time, please postpone your visit until you are well.

If you have a baby or toddler, please do not bring them with you to visit us until RSV season is over, as the virus is common among children and spreads very easily from child to child.

If possible, please get a flu shot. We plan on getting vaccinated for the regular flu next week, and the babies will be vaccinated for H1N1 when the vaccine becomes available at our pediatrician's office.

As usual, we'll ask you to wash and sanitize your hands before touching the babies, since the virus that causes RSV can live as long as 6 hours on hands and 12 hours on objects.

Oh, and if you're wondering whether I returned the tees I bought for the kids to wear to Homecoming ... no way! Look how cute they look in them!

Jude, Lucy, Isaac, and Dahlia get their first taste of fall in matching AU tees

9 months old ... it don't come easy!

I won't sugarcoat it—this past month has been a hard one.

We kicked it off with all of the babies getting roseola (several days of fever, followed by a rash). Naturally, their symptoms did not all appear on the same day—Lucy was the first to have a temperature, then Jude, then Isaac, and finally Dahlia. To compound the sheer misery of dealing with miserable babies (thank God my mother was in town!), the air conditioner chose to die on the second day of fever (which happened to be my birthday). A new air conditioning unit was not the kind of birthday gift I'd envisioned, but at that point I would have paid anything for a little relief.

Then, just as the roseola subsided, Isaac started cutting his first tooth. Suddenly, the kid who'd been sleeping 10 solid hours a night started waking up screaming every 2 hours! He now has two teeth on the bottom to show for it, but his sleeping patterns have yet to return to normal (I suspect another tooth is on the way). Dahlia, on the other hand, cut her two bottom teeth around the same time Isaac did, with very little change in her mood or sleeping patterns. Are my kids proving the theory that women have a higher pain tolerance than men do? We'll see how Jude and Lucy react to the ordeal when it's their turn!

Of course, none of this—fever, rash, or teeth—stopped the kids from keeping us on our toes with their continuing efforts to become fully mobile. Isaac started cruising a couple of weeks ago (and will loudly protest when confined to the playard); Dahlia occasionally pulls to standing; Jude can sit himself up, pulls to standing like a pro, and is almost officially crawling; and even little Lucy is rocking on all fours (only when she wants to though—you can't make her!).

Freshly bathed and happy—but it's getting harder and harder

to get them to sit still long enough for a quad pic!

We ended the already difficult month with a change in our feeding schedule—never an easy adjustment for any of us. Specifically, we've added a third meal of solid foods (so now they have breakfast, lunch, and dinner—just like real people!), and we've taken away one round of bottles. (Thanks for the advice, Christy!) This means that we are now going through 4 pounds of baby food per day, while the formula we are using has decreased to about two-thirds of a gallon a day. Incidentally, we are using just over two dozen diapers every day now, but we change approximately twice as many dirty diapers as we used to (thanks, baby food!).

As for naps, they've gone from three a day to just two—one in the morning and one in the early afternoon. We have to fight to get the babies to stay awake until bedtime, but I'd say that it's been paying off: Last night Dahlia slept for 12 straight hours! Dare I hope that the others follow suit (and save my sanity) in the near future? Stay tuned!

Lack of sleep = sick mommy

Yep, I'm sick. It started with a sore throat on Monday night, and things went downhill from there (runny nose, sneezing, watery eyes, achiness, etc.). I went to the doctor yesterday hoping for some heavy-duty meds to get me well in record time but, since I don't have a fever, he just prescribed an antihistamine and told me to get plenty of rest (yeah, right!). I am really hoping I didn't contaminate the kids before realizing that this was more than just an allergy attack, especially since our insurance did not approve them for the all-important RSV shot (believe it or not, the babies would have been covered if they'd been born at 32 weeks, which means that we are basically being penalized for making it as far as I did!).

We certainly don't need another source of discomfort for the babies. In the past couple of weeks, all of them have exhibited signs of reflux to some degree, including spitting up the entire contents of their stomachs, arching their backs, gagging, and/or having difficulty sleeping. This condition is not unusual for preemies (sometimes the valve between the esophagus and the stomach doesn't close properly), but combined with their pre-existing gassiness, it's contributed to an unusual amount of fussiness. We've switched to a soy formula and placed wedges in the cribs to keep the babies' heads elevated while sleeping, but since these measures haven't completely solved the problem, we started them on Zantac tonight. Hopefully this will help them keep their food (and stomach acid) down so that they can be more comfortable.

I don't really have anything to complain about, though: The big news is that the babies have been sleeping for two 5-hour stretches at night for about a week now. Here's hoping that they make it to 6 hours in the near future!