This is what Joe looked like toward the end of the day today.  Such a sick little baby :-/

Joe started acting differently on Thursday.  He wasn’t as interested in food as normal, but rather than worrying about it, I told myself that he was probably just plateauing from a growth spurt, doing a bit of teething, or maybe just tired.  He wasn’t feverish.

Friday started out OK.  He woke up at his normal time, was happy to see me, but that’s where it ended.  He wouldn’t eat breakfast.  I’ve promised myself that I wouldn’t be one of those mothers who made multiple food suggestions to their child in an attempt to get them to eat, but I was starting to have a little niggle of concern over Joe’s lack of appetite.  Scrambled egg?  Nope.  Homemade oatmeal?  No.  Toast?  No.  Banana?  Definitely not.

He was acting fine – still happy and playing with things – but no interest in food.  I tried to nurse him as usual, but that only lasted for 2, maybe 3 minutes.  He got down and made a beeline for his toys.  I raised an eyebrow, wondered what was up, and then told myself to get over it.  He wasn’t running a fever, he wasn’t throwing up, he wasn’t fussy.  He just wasn’t hungry.

He went down about 15 minutes early for his morning nap and woke at the usual time.

That was when the vomit hit the fan.  Literally.  Joe has a fan in his room and there vomit on it, the walls, his cot, dripping onto the storage boxes under the cot, pooled in his sheets, and all over him.  He was sitting there in the corner, looking at me with an expression that – if I had to guess – said, “What on earth just happened?!”

The rest of the day was a cycle: clean up, cuddle, attempt to get some fluids down (breastmilk, water, anything), projectile vomit… and then back to clean up.

Joe did take a little fluid between his morning and afternoon nap.  I even tried to nurse him – something that I haven’t done in the afternoon in about a month – but he just turned away (and then threw up – my jeans and slippers have now officially been “christened”).

When Joe wasn’t throwing up, being cleaned, or being cuddled, I scrubbed.  I cleaned every book, every piece of furniture in his room, washed all of his linens, scrubbed the walls… then I went into the lounge and did the same thing in there.  If it had a hard surface, it was scrubbed.  If it had a soft surface, it went into a steaming wash.

Some toys getting a bath

We now have one very disinfected, if not picked up, apartment.

Joe fell asleep in my arms before his afternoon nap, yet another thing that hasn’t been seen around here in months.  When he woke up, I continued to offer fluid, though no more nursing after what had happened the last time.  I started out with 5mLs of water every 10 minutes for an hour, then 5mLs of homemade broth every 10 minutes for a 30 minutes, then every 5 minutes for another 30 minutes, and then alternated between broth and an electrolyte solution for another 30 minutes.  For the last 30 minutes, I just let him take sips out of the cup when he wanted.  He drank the rest of the broth and most of the electrolyte solution, practically falling asleep mid-sip.  He spent the majority of the day in my arms, either being read to, pressing buttons on my iPod (one of his favorite activities – the boy loves to push buttons), or watching a little bit of “Praise Baby” on DVD.  Joe normally doesn’t watch TV except for when he’s sick, which thankfully rarely happens.  But when it does happen, I’m glad to have something else to keep him happy and still, if only for 30 minutes.

The picture at the beginning of this post was taken after I had gone to heat up the broth.  I laid him down on the floor with a blanket, warmed the broth, and came back to find that he’d attempted to crawl toward a toy, but had given up and simply laid his head in his lap.  It was the sweetest, saddest little thing!

So, understandably my Friday didn’t go as expected.  Dinner plans were cancelled.  I was able to get in a morning run during his first nap, but the rest of the day was spent doing stuff piecemeal: chopping up veggies here and there to eventually make it into the stew pot for dinner, folding cloth nappies when I was able (I decided to use disposables today – I was tired of having to change the cloth ones each time Joe threw up on himself, and figured that there was no point in making more laundry than what I was already facing), and calling Chris to have him pick up a few things on his way home.

I’m hoping that Joe is better by tomorrow.  It’s sad to see him so down and out, and it makes me realize how thankful I should be for our usual state of good health.  Here’s praying that it returns soon!

*****I’m about 90% certain that I know where he got this bug.  While I’m all for Joe beefing up his immune system, I still take care when we’re out and about.  We had to go to the doctor this week for our immigration medicals and Joe, being Joe, made a direct line for the office-provided toys and started to chew on them before I could reach him and re-direct him to the toys that I’d brought along.  It was 24 hours later that he started to turn his nose up at food, and 16 hours after that when he started to throw up.  Hmm.*****