Had a bad day

It all started after Jim and I crawled into bed and drifted off into a nice, deep sleep. The first of many interruptions came in the form of pitter pattering little feet down the carpeted hallway to our bedroom. Kaden was mumbling away, not making much sense, so we gently told him to head back to bed. He continued to sit and mumble at the edge of the bed, so I got up and escorted him back to his bedroom when I heard him say something that I understood, "I need a tissue!" Then I saw his face, covered in blood from a heavily bleeding nose. It took awhile to get it to stop (always does) but eventually it was stopped, he was cleaned up, sheets stripped, carpet scrubbed, and we were all back to sleep... for a bit.

Soon, the cry of the baby filled the air, which is really unusual for him. I went in to comfort him. His poor little arm somehow got twisted in the crib slats and he couldn't seem to get it free. Had it not been the arm with the thumb he sucks constantly to sleep, he probably would have slept right through it. He was untwisted, comforted and sleep was found again... for a bit.

In no time at all, another pitter pattering of feet came down the hall to our room and my sweet Kylee stated, "My ear hurts!" Oh dear. Just another of the thousands of ear infections we've had in this family, for sure, but, nonetheless, she was hurting. As she cuddled up to Daddy, I ran downstairs and rummaged around in the dark for medication for the pain, and the numbing drops for her eardrums. Once she was medicated and tucked back into bed, I started back into a peaceful slumber... for a bit.

Soon, Kylee was back in our room and jumped into bed with me. "Mommy, I can't go to sleep and my ear isn't all better yet." I told her that she could stay with me just until the pain subsided, but after a restless night so far, I fell back asleep rather quickly - though it was interrupted with the twists and turns of my beloveds on either side of me. :O)

When the sun dared to shine it's first ray over the horizon, the boys were quickly at the bedside begging for breakfast. We tried to delay and gain a few extra winks on our pillows, but to no avail. It's been awhile since we've had to endure a sleepless night and we were a bit out of practice. As we rolled out of bed, we found residual blood from Kaden's nose bleed on our own bed and stripped our sheets to also be washed. After which, a waffle breakfast was served.

As soon as I was able, I phoned the doctor's office to report Kylee's ear pain and was asked to bring her in. I explained that the doctor had seen her just last week and had warned that an infection was possible with some fluid build up already present and asked if medicine could be phoned into the pharmacy. The nurse wasn't convinced. I told her we had a busy day, bringing her in would be difficult, and was it possible to talk with the doctor? She did, and he graciously called in a prescription for my girl's ear infection. Wonderful!

However, not even 10 minutes later, the kids were planning a pillow fight and ran upstairs to get their pillows. Screams soon filled the air -which isn't uncommon in our home with 4 little ones who scream for fun, fear, delight and pain - but Kaden appeared with pain on his face and blood in his hair. "Tee," Jim called to me, "he's got quite the bump here." As Jim wiped away the blood, I tried my best to assess the seriousness of the bump. It didn't take long to realize it was big, deep, bloody and stitches would be needed. As we held a wiggling, crying boy and put pressure on his head, I called the doctor once again and told the nurse, "Never mind, we're going to need to come in after all!"

As soon as we could coral the kiddos, we all headed off to the doctor with Kade's head wrapped in an ace wrap. He had calmed down quite quickly once he realized that his owie might earn him a pokie prize and was quite excited to get his head taken care of. His happy attitude continued as his head was cleaned, numbed with topical and injections of lidocaine, and stitched together with 8 stitches. He sang, hummed, giggled, counted and goofed off all the while. The staff was amazed that a 4 year old boy could do so well and wondered what I'd given him before coming in. :O) Colson, who had stayed with me at the doctor while Jim took Ky and the baby to her gym class, was a very concerned, sweet brother. He carefully counted down the stitches as the doctor put them in and checked in with Kaden making sure he wasn't hurting. We soon left the doctor's with both boys shirts plastered in race car stickers.

I met up with Jim at gymnastics, and traded the boys for Kylee so I could take her to a friend's birthday party. Because of our hectic morning, we purchased the gift en route to the party and were a bit later than we expected to be - ugh. However, Kylee was happy to be there and while I left her to play for an hour with the girls, I ran home to get Kaden so we could buy his pokie prize. Running into the house, I heard more of the painful screaming. Now what??? I ran upstairs and was greeted by multiple spots of bright red blood in my cream colored carpet. What is with today??? Jim had a hysterical Colson on his lap in the bathroom, trying to stop his bloody nose. Together we stopped it, changed his bloodied clothes completely, and spent quite some time cleaning the carpet.

I am happy to say that the rest of our day was smooth. The boys and I grabbed groceries, Kaden's pokie prize and Kylee's antibiotics before running to pick her up. We were able to go on a walk, bathe all the kiddos and spend the evening together with popped popcorn and a good movie. It was the perfect ending to our "terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day!" (Anybody read that fun book by Judith Viorst?)