25 months 24 days

Day 786. Last night I went to bed just after midnight. I hadn't even fallen asleep, when Emmy came to me, and since he was sick and had a fever, I allowed him to come lie on my chest. At some point Tammy joined us too. It was another rough night, the fourth since they got sick. Today it was later than usual, when we got up at 8 am.

I made breakfast, but Tammy and Emmy usually eat little to nothing of the cereal. Sometimes they eat a banana and salami. At least they eat with their Daddy, when he eats his oatmeal. After breakfast I dressed Emmy and Tammy, but Emmy also got warm clothes and shoes to leave the house. We had decided to take him to the doctor's, as it was the fourth day that he had a fever, and it was pretty high this morning. Later the doctor informed me that officially it's only a fever if it's 38.5 or higher (101.3+), so he had a fever this morning. By 8:45 we were ready to leave. Tammy was not happy at all. She'd been asking for her shoes and was crying, when we left without her.

After our negative experience at a new pediatrician's recently, we returned to our previous one in the old neighborhood, which means a 45 minute trip. We took the subway to the end, and then a tram. Emmy was quiet and not moving, visibly feeling bad. The pediatrician has two locations, one for sick and one for healthy kids, and the waiting room was full of sick kids, when we got there at 9:30. It took us nearly 2 hours before we left again.

I had to wait in line to register and then found out I have to get the other pediatrician to release us for us to return to the old one. They gave me a number they would call and asked me to put a bag on Emmy to collect urine. Thankfully they never wanted it back, as it turned out I had not done it correctly. Before I was even done putting it on, we were called into the lab, where they did a Covid test and took Emmy's blood by sticking a needle into his finger. He never even reacted. Then we went to the waiting room to wait to be called. Emmy was sitting on my lap, just looking, not talking or moving. That's where the only picture of the day was taken. After a while we were called in.

It was a young doctor who took care of us, not the main one. She asked some questions and showed me from the blood test that Emmy obvioulsy had a virus that he was fighting. She also looked at his ears and throat and listened to his lungs. Randy always fears pneumonia, as one of his daughters had had it as a kid. The young doctor reported her findings to the old one who is the founder of the place, who told her to test the back of his throat. And so she swabbed him - a second time after the Covid test - and told us to wait for the result. Emmy had never cried or resisted anything the whole time. We went outside the room and sat down. Emmy was lying on my chest. We waited for a while without being called. When I saw the doctor between patients, I asked her if she had the results. She said yes and that Emmy had angina and needed antibiotics. She weighed him to know the dosage and sent us home. I was told the prescription would be put on his insurance card to be picked up at the pharmacy.

The place was even more crowded, when we left just after 11 am. There was a pharmacy right there, and we stood in line, just to find out he prescription wasn't on the card yet. So we walked to the tram stop to make our way home, where we arrived just before noon.

Emmy had fallen asleep in the stroller and I put him to bed. Then I warmed up a baby food jar and quickly cooked some beef and called the others upstairs to eat. It was just after noon, so close to our lunch time. Once again nobody wanted to eat. Tammy had a few pieces of meat and that was it. Emmy woke up after a few minutes, but he didn't want to eat anything either. So I dressed Tammy again, and took Emmy's additional clothes off. I tried to put Emmy back to bed, but he wanted to be with Mommy. So I ended up lying down in bed with him, where he fell asleep quickly. I hadn't done any work yet, nor eaten lunch, but had been able to get some food on a plate and turn my computer on, and so I ate with him asleep right next to me, and was able to do some work on the computer, though being somewhat handicapped. Randy put Sammy to bed, got himself something to eat, and then put Tammy to bed and sat down by their beds with his food. Somehow it worked out for him that she fell asleep.

The afternoon is a blurr after that. At some point I also fell asleep with Emmy. In fact, this has been the worst day health-wise for me, my nose being extremely runny, and coughing, like all three of them do. So it was definitely not a bad thing to sleep. At some point we woke up, when Tammy was back on her feet, and Randy trying to feed Sammy his afternoon snack. It was after 3 pm. Normally we would have been at dance class at that time, but we had decided not to go in light of them all being sick. Even though Tammy has been singing one of the songs from there all week... "Popo waschen....". I made myself get up to try to get some food into Emmy, but he still didn't want to eat anything, neither did Tammy. At least she had a few fruit and cereal drinks. After a while we all went downstairs, while Randy ran to the pharmacy to get Emmy's antibiotics. When he returned, he told me that the prescription was still not on his card. As it was too late in the day to call, I wrote them an email and hope they put it on the card in the morning.

Thankfully Sammy is now also over the fever, though coughing hard, and all three have runny noses. Emmy wanted to go into the swing, until Tammy asked to call Grandma, as he wanted to join us then as well. We couldn't reach her and started watching Barbapapa for a few minutes, when Grandma became available, and we called her. They were excited to see her. Randy returned, while we were still talking.

I was glad that for once Emmy was happy to be held by Daddy instead of me and went upstairs to have a few minutes to myself and work. However, I went straight to the kitchen and made the soup I had intended to do in the morning, cleaned up, cut up some fruit, filled the bathtub, and by then it was already time for their dinner. No office work. I went downstairs, and together we did some tidying up and then went upstairs to eat. Tammy ate some soup, but Emmy still didn't want to eat. After a few minutes of trying, they went to the bathtub, and I took the plate of fruit there with us. However, not much of it was eaten in the bathtub today. Sammy didn't eat it all either. Emmy was still not active, even though he had had a few moments of activity downstairs in the afternoon. It wasn't too long before they all came out of the water and went to bed. It was only 6:45 pm.

And nobody fell asleep right away. At least Emmy lay down, which is not typical, and was not jealous, when Tammy came to lie on me, which is not typical either. Sammy must have slept a long time in the afternoon, and so it took him a long time to fall asleep. At one point I tried to put Tammy to bed so I could hold Sammy, but she did not appreciate that all. I still got to hold Sammy for a little bit, which is rare anyway. After a while Emmy got up again. His fever seemed gone or nearly gone, and having slept most of the day, he suddenly became active, together with his sister, who also got up. Actually Emmy started getting up, when Sammy would throw his pacifier out, and Emmy would get up to give him back to him. However, Sammy does that on purpose, and so Emmy got up quite a few times, which was really sweet of him.

When I tried to put Emmy and Tammy back into their beds, they both wanted me to hold them, which is not possible. Randy came to the rescue and sat down by their beds, and after a while they were all asleep. Sammy has been pretty restless tonight, coughing and waking up crying. Emmy of course has already been up and wanted me to hold him. Once Randy sat down by their beds, I was able to get myself some soup, eat, and then go back to work. Now I still have to do the cleanup before I can go to bed.