Sick Kids

For the past week now we have been dealing with Tyler being sick. It started last Wednesday (I think) when he had a stomach ache and threw up or dry heaved throughout the night. (Question: is there anything worse than a dry heave?) Thursday Tyler seemed fine, but then Friday night he had fitful sleep because of an extreme fever. Saturday he woke in the middle of the night with a horrific cough and chest weezing. Sunday he saw the doc and found out he had the Croup (Question: of all the names for illness isn't the Croup the coolest. Sounds like something that would rise from a swamp to torture young children). The rest of this week was spent getting him back up to speed. Finally, this Wednesday night he slept through the night without waking and is doing considerably better. (Not sure if you can tell in this picture, but this was taken when Tyler was looking very pale and sick. Still all too happy to smile for the camera. By the way, Jamie is only pretending to be asleep in the background.)

Cue Marcus. Marcus woke up shortly after going down last night with an awful wheezing in his chest. Clearly the dreaded Croup has invaded another victim. Poor Jamie had to rock him all night long. Marcus spurned all of my attempts to calm him or relieve Jamie. Finally around 5am Jamie couldn't take it anymore and I had to just let Marcus cry it out on my chest as I rocked him. It was heartbreaking. (Marcus isn't sick yet in this picture, but its the most recent one we have so I thought I would give you a visual of whom I was writing about).

My point today though is that I think my kids are the coolest sick kids ever. (I'm even going to provide some video evidence.) The night Tyler kept throwing up he had to have been the sweetest little puker ever. After each trip to the bathroom he would look up at me and say "thanks for taking care of me daddy." Then Thursday morning before I left for work I ran to the store to buy him some white bread and crackers. When I came back Tyler walked up to me and in the sweetest voice said, "Dad, I missed you when you were at the store," then just to make sure my heart really melted he added, "just like I always miss you when you go to work." I can't explain it well (one of those times when I wish I was a more skilled writer and could really help you experience just how sweet Tyler was being) but Tyler has been so sweet all week. (Of course he may be extra sweet because this week we let him watch a lot more TV and videos than we normally do). This video is of Tyler talking about being sick. I was trying to capture how funny his voice sounds now that it has been ravaged by the Croup (whenever I type or say "Croup" my mind automatically plays a vaudeville like villain's chord). The video doesn't really capture how cartoon like Tyler's voice has become, but it's kind of cute anyway so here it is:

This next video is of Marcus the morning after getting NO sleep. He was grumpy and groggy and all I could think to do to help him cheer up was give him the thing he is always after but that I never let him touch. My cellphone. I let it play a song for him and he totally started rocking out. Sorry its such a dark video it was too early for us to worry about things like lighting. This is proof that Marcus is also a cool sick kid.

Finally, I would be a total lame-o if I didn't mention what an amazing mom Jamie has been through all of this. She is definately dragging from the lack of sleep, but she has managed to fight through over a week of sleepless nights and continues to love and care for our little guys. She ROCKS!