Thanksgiving update

We're home with two very sick babies, hoping to escape to Jersey to celebrate and give thanks with the Grinnells at some point over the weekend. Tuesday afternoon we revisited the pediatrician, who pronounced Beck's ears "horrible" and Theo's ears "questionable." Theo had a 102+ fever and Beck had hives. We debated whether to give just Beckett a z-pac or to juice them both up and decided on the latter, to try to kill, for once and for all, this bug we have been trading back and forth for the last six weeks. The pediatrician thinks it's nothing serious but we just keep giving it to each other so we can never rid our family of it. Jeff's been getting worse and worse and went to the doctor himself today and got a z-pac, and I've been feeling worse over the last few days (though not as bad as the boys of the family). So I got myself a z-pac as well. We're going to try to kick this thing hardcore. 100% of our family is now on a z-pac.

The boys also experienced their first blood draws this morning. The pediatrician wanted to rule out anything especially yucky (as of this afternoon, everything that had come back looked normal). For anyone who knows me, you may remember that I used to have to be physically subdued to have blood drawn. I've come a long way but it is still difficult and stressful for me. I tried to remain calm and upbeat for the boys and we were lucky enough to have Mindy come with us this morning to help keep the boys relaxed . We had predicted that Theo would be the one screaming his face off, so Beck went first. He cried and screamed, especially the longer it went on, which of course prolonged it, because he did not like being restrained. But he was a champ and stopped crying immediately after it was over. He seemed to think the bandage was pretty cool. Theo calmly watched the tech insert the needle and then laughed when she asked how many fingers he had and counted them out. He was quiet and watchful the entire time. Near the end he got squirmy because he didn't like being restrained, but he was fine. Hooray! I'm especially thankful for Mindy for coming with us and for the patient and kind women at the St Joe's lab who gave great big stickers to the boys before their draws, and beanie babies afterward.

We're hoping to head to Jersey tomorrow morning if everyone's feeling better and the night goes a little better tonight. The boys have been sleeping terribly lately (off and on for about six weeks) and we need some sleep to heal!