Last Saturday night, I told Gabriel that the next day was his half birthday. He very sweetly asked who was coming to his party. I had to backpedal a bit, explaining that we don’t really celebrate half birthdays; they are just a way of marking time. I feared that he would have a meltdown (lots of those in the past couple of months — Tyrannical Threes?), but he handled the “no party” news fairly well.
On his half birthday, he woke with a fever (after a night spent coughing), and he’s been sick ever since. No party, and the flu?* He’ll probably just vote to skip his half birthday next year, and I wouldn’t blame him!
He’s been pretty lethargic, with an on-and-off fever, that, other than Sunday morning, seems to appear in the afternoon and dissipate later in the evening. In general, we like to let the fever do it’s job (the point of a fever is raising the temperature to make it inhospitable to the invading microbes), but at this point, we’re starting to feel like the fever has had it’s chance.
He also has a terrible cough, that, of course, mostly surfaces when he tries to lie down and rest. His body seems to be able to mostly shut off the coughing for a good portion of the night (perhaps with the help of medicated chest rub), but the cough surfaces in full force around 4:30am. One morning he coughed so hard (and probably had so much nasty phlegm in his belly), that he threw up a bit. Fortunately (?) I was in bed with him at the time, but ever since I’ve been paranoid that it will happen again and he’ll asphyxiate.
He rejected my attempt at a homemade honey and lemon cough remedy (it had coconut oil in it, and was kind-of weird, to be fair — maybe just honey and lemon next time???).
In the past five days, G has watched more TV at home than in the past 3.5 years combined (that’s not counting what he watched at his sitter’s, which was not crazy, but more than I was thrilled about): Daniel Tiger and Curious George episodes, along with Charlotte’s Web and Cinderella.
His appetite is almost non-existent. We’re really pushing the liquids: water, herbal tea with lots of honey, and some [usually diluted] juice. I’m half tempted to see if I can start lactating again, both for hydration and comfort.
It kind of feels like winter break never ended. We had one week of school/work normalcy, and now this all week. So far, Matthew and I are relatively healthy (knock on wood). I’m hoping that G will kick this thing in the next few days, and be ready to return to school on Tuesday.
*We all had our flu shots, but there’s a nasty influenza strain going around that wasn’t included in this year’s vaccine — rotten luck!
Her Green Life 
Oy Vay! That does NOT sound fun!
I’ve had great luck with straight honey for coughs – works best if you take a spoonful right before bed and don’t eat or drink anything afterwards (something about coating the throat I think) But, I think the general recommendation is that if a fever persists for more than a few days you should go see a doctor because it could mean a secondary infection like pneumonia that needs to be treated. If he’s not improved by tomorrow I’d be tempted to take him in, especially with a long weekend looming.
Sure hope he’s feelin’ better soon! Big Hugs!
We’re taking him in this afternoon. A secondary infection is my main concern, but it seems odd because I’m not certain there was a primary infection. Better safe than sorry, especially heading into a long weekend!
We had that at our house. All four of us got it and pneumonia is a risk of this flu strain. I was worried about that since b had a bout of croup right before it so he was weak going into the flu. We tried a warm most humidifier which helped a little. Have you tried the chest rub on the bottom of his feet with thick socks over it.?
Yes, we’ve had the warm mist humidifier going. I need to remember the chest rub on the feet thing. I did it before one of his naps this week, and it did seem to help a bit.