Heading Home
Yesterday we visited the botanical gardens. They were pretty, and the maze made from shrubbery was quite entertaining for the kids. Unfortunately I was feeling worse by the minute, and Baby E didn't seem to be feeling well either.
By the time we got done at the gardens I was feeling so sick that DH just brought me and Baby E back to the hotel. I attempted rather unsuccessfully to get Baby E to nap while he took the older girls on to the beach.
Baby E felt great the first day of the trip but has seemed a bit under the weather since then. She's been tired and fussy, and not sleeping or napping well.
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She has cried frantically whenever we've strapped her into her car seat the last few days. I've had to work very hard to entertain her and keep her from crying the whole time we're driving--sometimes successfully, sometimes not.
Her largest source of frustration during this trip has been that she can't walk everywhere we go. But with her snail's pace and her still-unsteady walking skills, we too-often have to carry her over her loud protests, or still worse strap her into the car. She's such an independent little thing.
We tried unsuccessfully to find a restaurant with something, anything, Baby E and I could eat last night. Finally we went back to Whole Foods, planning to get a whole roasted chicken to take back to the hotel room.
Since the electric cooler had turned off overnight the first night we were here, I'd been leery of trying the food in it. The experiment in boiling the soup well and eating hadn't exactly gone well. I didn't know for sure if that was the cause of my illness, but I hadn't felt well since eating it and didn't want to repeat the attempt.
Unfortunately, Whole Foods didn't have a single one of the plain, nothing-added roasted chickens they'd had the day before. There didn't seem to be much else available already-cooked that we could eat, either. So we got some more fruit and rice crackers and headed back to the hotel, stopping at Wendy's to buy plain hamburger patties with nothing on them for myself and E.
The plain hamburger patties have seemed the least risky food the last few days. The ingredients are simply beef and salt, but even so they make me nervous. Even in the unlikely event that the meat isn't treated with citric acid or anything like that, there's probably significant risk of cross-contamination on the grill with other meats that do have corn and soy ingredients added.
Baby E isn't exactly thriving on them, but at least there's no immediate or severe bad reaction.
Her discomfort, as usual, seems worst at night when there is no activity to distract her. We've had to really work to keep her relatively quiet for the sake of the older kids and the other guests.
Baby E had an even harder time than usual going to sleep last night. She finally fell asleep in our bed close to 1 a.m, still tossing and fidgeting while she nursed.
She woke at 3, screaming and thrashing wildly around the bed. She had worked her way toward our feet and was nearly falling off the bottom of the bed before either of us was awake enough to grab her.
Trying to keep a crying baby quiet in a hotel room in the middle of the night is a new challenge. DH walked back and forth with her trying to find something, anything, that would interest her enough to quell the screaming. Finally she drank some water. She's adamantly refusing to nurse.
She cries whenever I try to get her to go back to sleep or lie down and rest, either in our bed (where she's been sleeping for most of the trip) or in her own. So I'm sitting up with her, with the TV silently playing for distraction.
She's fussy, but willing to be quiet as long as a light is on and we're "up" with nobody trying to make her sleep. She keeps pointing both to her mouth and tongue and to her tummy. She takes my hand and shows me that she wants me to rub her belly.
I'd guess that she has a sore throat (as I do, probably from some allergen in the air) and/or that her teeth are bothering her, and that her tummy also hurts. She's also quite gassy, as evidenced by the writhing and the sounds and smells emanating from her hind end. She's seemed more uncomfortable when lying down then when upright the last day or two. There, Dr. GI, how's that for a scientific observation?
It's a long drive home. I hope it goes well today.
It's been a nice trip, and I'm glad we came. But I'll be glad to be back in our own home again, with our own food.
Edited to add: Baby E finally fell back asleep around 5:30. She kept waking up whimpering every few minutes for the rest of the night. As long as I was propping her semi-upright and she had both hands on me and my hand on her tummy, she'd sleep.
I wish I knew for sure what's causing her discomfort. We've eaten a lot of things we don't normally eat on this trip. I've tried to be careful, but it's impossible to be sure there isn't one of her allergens hidden in something. And that's even without taking into account that there could be something else making her feel ill.
By the time we got done at the gardens I was feeling so sick that DH just brought me and Baby E back to the hotel. I attempted rather unsuccessfully to get Baby E to nap while he took the older girls on to the beach.
Baby E felt great the first day of the trip but has seemed a bit under the weather since then. She's been tired and fussy, and not sleeping or napping well.
####################
She has cried frantically whenever we've strapped her into her car seat the last few days. I've had to work very hard to entertain her and keep her from crying the whole time we're driving--sometimes successfully, sometimes not.
Her largest source of frustration during this trip has been that she can't walk everywhere we go. But with her snail's pace and her still-unsteady walking skills, we too-often have to carry her over her loud protests, or still worse strap her into the car. She's such an independent little thing.
We tried unsuccessfully to find a restaurant with something, anything, Baby E and I could eat last night. Finally we went back to Whole Foods, planning to get a whole roasted chicken to take back to the hotel room.
Since the electric cooler had turned off overnight the first night we were here, I'd been leery of trying the food in it. The experiment in boiling the soup well and eating hadn't exactly gone well. I didn't know for sure if that was the cause of my illness, but I hadn't felt well since eating it and didn't want to repeat the attempt.
Unfortunately, Whole Foods didn't have a single one of the plain, nothing-added roasted chickens they'd had the day before. There didn't seem to be much else available already-cooked that we could eat, either. So we got some more fruit and rice crackers and headed back to the hotel, stopping at Wendy's to buy plain hamburger patties with nothing on them for myself and E.
The plain hamburger patties have seemed the least risky food the last few days. The ingredients are simply beef and salt, but even so they make me nervous. Even in the unlikely event that the meat isn't treated with citric acid or anything like that, there's probably significant risk of cross-contamination on the grill with other meats that do have corn and soy ingredients added.
Baby E isn't exactly thriving on them, but at least there's no immediate or severe bad reaction.
Her discomfort, as usual, seems worst at night when there is no activity to distract her. We've had to really work to keep her relatively quiet for the sake of the older kids and the other guests.
Baby E had an even harder time than usual going to sleep last night. She finally fell asleep in our bed close to 1 a.m, still tossing and fidgeting while she nursed.
She woke at 3, screaming and thrashing wildly around the bed. She had worked her way toward our feet and was nearly falling off the bottom of the bed before either of us was awake enough to grab her.
Trying to keep a crying baby quiet in a hotel room in the middle of the night is a new challenge. DH walked back and forth with her trying to find something, anything, that would interest her enough to quell the screaming. Finally she drank some water. She's adamantly refusing to nurse.
She cries whenever I try to get her to go back to sleep or lie down and rest, either in our bed (where she's been sleeping for most of the trip) or in her own. So I'm sitting up with her, with the TV silently playing for distraction.
She's fussy, but willing to be quiet as long as a light is on and we're "up" with nobody trying to make her sleep. She keeps pointing both to her mouth and tongue and to her tummy. She takes my hand and shows me that she wants me to rub her belly.
I'd guess that she has a sore throat (as I do, probably from some allergen in the air) and/or that her teeth are bothering her, and that her tummy also hurts. She's also quite gassy, as evidenced by the writhing and the sounds and smells emanating from her hind end. She's seemed more uncomfortable when lying down then when upright the last day or two. There, Dr. GI, how's that for a scientific observation?
It's a long drive home. I hope it goes well today.
It's been a nice trip, and I'm glad we came. But I'll be glad to be back in our own home again, with our own food.
Edited to add: Baby E finally fell back asleep around 5:30. She kept waking up whimpering every few minutes for the rest of the night. As long as I was propping her semi-upright and she had both hands on me and my hand on her tummy, she'd sleep.
I wish I knew for sure what's causing her discomfort. We've eaten a lot of things we don't normally eat on this trip. I've tried to be careful, but it's impossible to be sure there isn't one of her allergens hidden in something. And that's even without taking into account that there could be something else making her feel ill.
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Posted by purple_kangaroo at 3:49 AM[Permanent link]
2 Comments:
Oh, sweetie. I hope you both feel better soon.
And I'm hoping it's teething.
Thanks, Liz. I've never seen teething cause this excessive amount of discomfort and go on for so long. But I'm going to try giving her some Tylenol and see if that helps. It hasn't seemed to make much difference before, but it's worth a try again.
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