danadanalexgenevieve: Sick As A...

Last week Alex started at daycare, where he's enrolled Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. It's very close to my work, so I can drop by at lunchtime to see him and play with him. So far it has been okay. They are very nice and good with the babies, but their caregiver to baby ratio is a bit too low for our tastes. If nothing else, it will be a good stop-gap measure until we come to a better long-term solution. All options are still on the table. Tuesdays and Thursdays we have our good friend Jane helping us watch Alex. She was the very first person besides us who watched Alex, way back when he was just a month old or so. She is fantastic!

As a special present for us, Alex brought home one nasty little flu virus. He first started showing signs of it on Thursday. By Friday night it had set in like a thunderstorm. Dana and I both came down with a persistent mid-grade fever, slight congestion, aches and pains, and overall exhaustion. Alex had a slight fever, and presumably most of the same symptoms. By Saturday it had manifested itself in a raging sore throat. While Dana and Alex have turned the corner, I am just miserable in the sore throat department. Codeine does not seem to do the trick...

For his part, Alex was completely miserable all weekend, Thursday, Friday and Saturday night we slept in shifts, since Alex could only breathe well when mostly upright. So we traded off sleeping with him on the couch sitting up. Even with that concession, he was not a happy camper. We had him on infant Tylenol drops, and regular saline nasal spray and aspirator suction. Blah. He really hates that, but he could sure breathe easier afterwards.

On a happier note, the weather has been nice. It has been a bit hot during the day, but almost every day since we've been back we've had a huge thunderstorm. The winds and rain on Friday night were enough to knock out power all night on our block.

In other great news, the upstairs bedroom remodel is nearly complete. The finish trim work is complete and it looks fabulous, very faithfully reproducing the look of all of the dark reddish-brown woodwork downstairs. I am especially pleased with our new built-in bookshelf, which is already stacked to the brim with our books. We had all of the carpets cleaned on Saturday and the only things left to do are to hook up the electricity and hook up the heat. I hope to get these done next week (after my throat is not killing me), and we should be moved in by this time next weekend.