Spring Fever

It has been quite the spring this year! Rainstorm after rainstorm after massive rainstorm, and the temperatures have been so cool I regret daily that I put away 90% of my winter clothes - I also decide daily that I'm too lazy to get under the bed and pull those winter clothes out. I'll just tough it out one more day, SURELY spring temperatures are just around the corner.... right?

Well, it's finally warmed up just in time for my kids to get spring fever! That is to say, a nasty fever during the first lovely days of spring.

Eli got a low-grade fever, never over 101, and effectively slept for 48 hours. There was a lovely stretch in there where he didn't leave him room for 27 hours - he watched one movie and got up twice to go to the bathroom, and HE SLEPT the other 25 hours! I expected him to sleep, he was sleepy in the womb, sleepy when he was a baby, and has always slept when he felt under the weather, but even this was taking it to a new level and I got worried enough I thought about dragging his sleeping body to Urgent Care! Short of that, calling the pediatrician about his sleeping body (which I also thought about and didn't do). In the end I decided the doctors might find that much sleep alarming and dig for a deeper meaning with bloodwork and tests, while I trusted my mom-gut to know that it's Eli's sick style to sleep and I should just leave him to it (checking up on him frequently, of course). Sure enough, he popped out of bed, fever gone, appetite back, and big smiles on his face. During those 27 hours of being Eli-less I paused to imagine life without Eli, and it just seemed LESS. Less fun. Less rowdy. Less noise. Less snuggling. I'm certainly glad it turned out to be nothing serious because I would be less than happy to lose our awesome Ooly-Kadooly!

Caroline got the fever and took the opposite approach - she went to bed with a touch of heat but by 11 p.m. her fever spiked to 105 (105! I took is 3 times because I couldn't believe it). I gave her ibuprofen and cooled her forehead with a wet washcloth and figured I would sit by her while she slept until her fever came down, but I stayed in there for an hour and she talked to me the whole time. Totally unable to sleep in the middle of the night with her insanely high fever! She was feverish the next evening too but it was gone by midnight, so her entire sick spell ran hot and burned itself out quickly.

So far so good on the other boys, they've avoided the fever and enjoyed the sunshine (although Patrick did NOT enjoy that he had to go to school while Eli got all those sick days at home. Pouting fits happened.) And that about brings us up to date on the kids!