interesting week

It's been an interesting week here at the Oxenford Ranch. At playgroup on Monday, Sophie experienced her first "gerbil pile." She was in the yard running around with her little buddies and next thing I look over and Sophie is on the ground with four children on top of her and her little face is looking over at me like "uh, mom... a little help here??" There were no tears until all the children got off her so I thought it was going to be all right but then she started wailing. I think the shock of having four children on top of her just hit her and she had a delayed reaction to the sheer intensity of it all. She recovered but then when any kid would chase her she would stop dead in her tracks and stand still and cry. I think she was trying to prevent another pile on.

Then Sophie went back to school on Tuesday and seemed to have a great day. But alas she woke up Tuesday night throwing up all over herself and her room. The poor girl... It was so pathetic. She has been lucky enough to not have a stomach virus for a long time (well, since Grammy was here during the great stomach ick of February 2009) so I think it was just so weird and upsetting to her. She was up with it at least 3-4 times. So there were 3-4 sheet/blanket/pajamas changes along with lots of other causalities (like her white rug). The next day she seemed pretty good in the morning though of course incredibly tired. So we thought maybe we were lucky and she was on the mend but then she got worse throughout the day and was up again all night the next night because she was coming down with a cold. Woke up on Thursday with a fever and feeling lousy. By mid-morning she had a runny nose and her throat clearly hurt. So she spent Thursday in bad shape and stayed in her PJs all day. Thankfully, Dee Ree was here so she was a big help and brightened the little patient's sick day considerably. Yesterday, after another rough night of sleeping Sophie slept until 10:45am! She has never ever slept that late in her life. But when she woke up she did seem slightly improved and I think the good resting let her recover quite a bit. Today she woke up at the normal time, got a decent night's sleep and so far seems like her normal happy self. (Already asked to put on a dress and is running around the house doing her usual Sophie things.)

I hope that's the end of it for her. If she did have a stomach virus on Tuesday and a cold virus on Thurs. and already feels pretty good by Saturday then I'd say we're pretty darn lucky. But when I talked to the pediatric nurse about Sophie this week she warned me that if this was Sophie's first time in school that "I should be prepared for her to be sick all year long." Sigh. I was pretty much a weepy puddle upon hearing that dose of reality. So, we'll see. If she does come home sick every week from school well, I might just pull her out for another year or at least a few months. Once we get Emily squared away with a good nightime sleeping routine, maybe then I could deal with a toddler who is sick all year but until then, I just don't know that our family can handle it.

In other news, Emily so far does not seem to have caught the bug. Let's hope it stays that way!!

Sophie and Emily pre-ick




Sophie in the throes of sick yesterday morning