The Chronicles of Us: Case of cabin fever

So as you all may know (all two of you that read this), the kids have been sick for quite a few days now. N began getting sick on Thanksgiving day. We figured it was his teeth since he was getting 5 teeth at once including 2 eye teeth. On Thanksgiving, we figured his reluctance to eat was because his cousin who had already finished eating was down playing- well what kid wants to eat when they have the chance to play. On Friday, he flat out refused to eat at all and gagged and actually threw up at the table when I pleaded with him to eat. We thought it was my mom's cooking (haha!- jk mom, I swear). So we stopped in at walgreens on the way home from my brother and sister in law's house in Goose Creek (who we ate Thanksgiving with on Friday) to pick up some pediasure. We held him down and sure enough, he was getting tons of new teeth. The next day we went to the Clemson/Carolina game at Jordee's (Maybe next time Gamecocks!) and Jordee gave us some baby food, which N ate. So I went to walgreen's after we left and stocked up on baby food... which he ate for the next couple of days. Thursday, he got much worse and here we are today... still very sick and not eating, at all. And thats only N. J still has her bad cough and a touch of a fever, but overall, shes the better one. Dont know what to do with these sick kids... So we've been confined to the house for the past week. Except for a brief excursion to walmart to get more baby food. Puh puh puh.

I seriously dont know what to do when I go back to work... What do people do when their kids get sick and cant go to daycare for a while?! In a way, it was nice having my husband at home to take care of N when we lived in Summerville, but it was also very hard, financially. Thinking hard about the future... should I go back to work and have Hubby McHubberson stay home with the kids, should we try and make it work with 2 incomes? We're more than ready to buy a house. We're so excited about the idea. The thought of going back to work as a nurse makes my heart sink though. Its a love/hate relationship there. Its not everything that I thought that it would be. You come in for work for the day, the night shift hands you everything that they couldnt finish over night, that HAS to get finished before doctors make rounds, a nurse (or two) calls out and you're assuming a greater patient load which is unsafe, the patients complain when they have to wait 15 minutes for pain medication (when 4 other patients call for it at the same time), you work so hard you dont get a chance to sit down all day long and you dont get a lunch break, you're practically running up and down the halls giving pain medications, dressing changes, doing blood transfusions on 3 patients at once (monitoring them every 15 minutes at first), one has a tranfusion reaction, checking orders, a good bit of the patients are MRSA positive so you have to gown and glove up before going in the room, getting chewed out by some doctor or the other for another nurses mistake, getting brand spanking new patients from Recovery who have come up with their O2 sats in the 70s and low 80s before, some hollering out in pain, not getting home until 9pm... oh dear Jesus. And thats how I feel about being a nurse, in a nutshell. In SC, there are no mandated laws for nurse:patient ratios- you take what you get. Ho Hum. Ah, sorry about the rant there. But even though I loved (Absolutely loved!!) my friends and coworkers, not to mention I had the greatest boss, at the hospital I was working at before having J, I have a bad taste in my mouth about going back. And it makes me so sad to think of leaving my kids, especially J, with someone else. I just have bad visions of someone I dont know taking care of her because shes still a little ~~colicky~~ sensitive. I think N would probably benefit from going to daycare, learning new songs and doing little kiddie projects while interacting with other kids his age. He has a few little friends and he just loves them, always trying to give them hugs (and pull/push them down in the process- rough boy). They're all girls, go figure ;-)

So yes, this post ended up being a little longer than I had originally planned. In fact, I was just getting on to briefly say that the kids were still sick. But the hubs is downstairs watching a CSI marathon of some sort and Im left up to my own devices. I dont like CSI. Looks like we're going to miss our playdate tomorrow with my "SC Midlands Mom's" group and the kids at funzone. *Pokes lip out* Well to end, I'll add a few pictures that I took today. Yes, I take pictures everyday...almost. Id love a better camera, and some lessons on how to use it. Im still trying to figure out what ISO means.

My little monkey, sitting up on her very own at 4 months: