Poor Baby

Daughter and Son-in-law McT. went away (Thursday to Sunday) for a much needed and deserved long weekend. I did the Mrs. Doubtfire duty, with help from the regular weekday sitter. Mr. McT and I had a fun-filled weekend planned for the tot but when he rose Saturday AM he seemed decidedly subdued and I thought he was beginning to miss his mommy and daddy. He had the hiccups. (odd for first thing in the morning) Normally a good eater, he refused to open his lips for either pancakes or scrambled eggs though he did drink a few ounces of watered-down juice.
Just as I was about to get him dressed fro the walk over to the pool for swimming class, he whimpered and threw-up the juice and what looked like the last meal I had fed him the night before. Uh-oh, diarrhea too. There won't be any swimming this weekend.
I cleaned the boy up from top to bottom and gave him a few small sips of water. A few minutes later that came up and the diaper needed changing again. Enough evidence for me to diagnose a case of whatever's been going around.
We bundled him up and brought him to our house for the day. After crushing a quantity of ice, Mr. McT was dispatched to the market to buy Coke, Gatorade, Pedialyte – fluids that have not seen the inside of our refrigerator in years.
Unfortunately, the day went downhill. He slept a lot and when he was awake he was inconsolable. He just didn't know what was happening to him. He couldn't keep down even small amounts of fluid. He was refusing to open his mouth for anything. He just cried and cried. I began to worry about dehydration.
We bundled him back up and drove back to his house. The ride in the car calmed him down and he fell asleep. (Whew) A call to the doctor was definitely in order and he couldn't have been nicer. He assured us that a kid of his size and general health could go a whole day with nothing and that we should just offer whatever we thought he might possibly like and eventually he'd feel better and take something. (I should know that, right?) He said that usually when he calls back the next day to check on a child with a stomach flu the child has bounced back but the adults are all sick.
Great. This was starting to resemble the flu episode in The Secret Lives of Dentists.
Saturday night was bad. Baby and I spent it on the couch watching Barney and Thomas the Train DVD's in between bouts of stomach cramps. He had a fever that was just high enough to cause misery. Would it suddenly spike? Was an emergency room trip a possibility?
Morning finally came. He took a few ounces of milk mixed with camomile tea. It seemed to make him feel bad again resulting in his refusal to open his mouth for anything for the rest of the day. He looked and acted really sick. All day he couldn't really even lift his little head off the couch. When we spoke to the doctor again that afternoon, he was surprised that things had not improved. We were to monitor the temp and be ready for the tepid bath plunge if he got too hot. In four hours we'd call him and if there was no change we'd be meeting at the hospital.
I was tired myself and realized that I hadn't eaten in the past two days either so we ordered in some Chinese food. When the door buzzer rang, the baby opened his eyes and said something (What he said, I have no idea)
When I spooned some wonton soup into a bowl, he said, "Soup? Soup?"
I answered him, "Yes. Chinese soup."
"Chinese? Chinese?" he countered with genuine interest.
This was the most life we'd seen in two days. He wanted the soup. He took it a teaspoon at a time with a bit of noodle and rice asking for more as soon as he swallowed and while this relatively enormous quantity of food precipitated some drastic intestinal reactions he seemed suddenly unbothered by it all and eager to eat more soup. The pains must be gone. He's getting better!
Daughter and Son-in-law McT. arrived home at 10:00 PM Sunday night. Baby MacTech was peacefully asleep.