Sick Day

It has been a most trying day to say the least. Our little firecracker Owen has been sick the past 48 hours with congestion, coughing, and sneezing. He was restless last night as he sniffed, hacked and wheezed his way to short bursts of sleep. As this is our first experience with the "sick child" phenomenon, Amy and I were up most of the night checking in on him regularly.

Today Amy took Owen to the doctor where we learned he had contracted a virus that we will have to let run its course. Add Owen's cold-like symptoms and overall irritability with a relapse of Gus's acid reflux condition causing him to scream inconsolably during feedings and it spells a long day for the Rutledge herd.

I tried to work at home today to help Amy out, but found myself mostly dodging unhappy infants between teleconferences with work. When I did get the chance to help out by trimming Owen's monster fingernails, I clipped too close on his thumb causing it to bleed steadily for a solid five minutes. If there's one thing worse than not being able to comfort your child, it's not being able to comfort him and you're the reason his face is bright red and he's screaming for the heavens. Sigh. Later in the day we nearly filled our drawers when we saw spots of blood on his shirt and thought he had eaten the band-aid we had placed on his thumb. Luckily the band-aid had come off on one of his plastic rings and he was just happily gnawing away at his bleeding thumb.

Parenthood -- I guess there's no other way than to live through it. That's what we're learning.

"Who me?"

Yes, little booger I'm talking about you. Get well soon champ. Sorry about the thumb.