Just keep swimming...

An interesting fact that you may not know about Scarlett is that she sleeps only in her crib.  I can't think of a time she's ever fallen asleep on the couch or playing in her playroom or wherever other kids may fall randomly asleep.  Once in a blue moon, I mean like once every few months, she'll fall asleep on the way home from somewhere if we've pushed too far past her nap.  The last time she did that was when we were coming back from the Zoo at 5:00 pm with the Alstons last July.  The point is, if she's fallen asleep out of her crib, then she's seriously exhausted.

Last week, we all hit such levels of exhaustion.  Scarlett had a little cough on Friday, but it wasn't too bad, so I didn't worry about it.  Friday night, she woke up and coughed so much she threw up a ton of mucus.  It was gross, so I brought her into our bed for the first time in her little 2.5 year old life.  She curled up next to me and fell asleep.  She would sleep for 30 minute increments before she started coughing, hacking, wheezing, etc.  Finally around 3 am, Wes took her downstairs and they sat on the couch and watched some Dora while she drank some water.  She went to bed and slept until morning.

The next day, her fevers were getting really high, around 102 degrees.  She was pretty miserable most of the day and we let her watch whatever she wanted all day long.  She would only drink the occasional sip of water and wouldn't eat anything.  Saturday night, was probably the 2nd worse night of my life, right after the first night we brought Scarlett home from the hospital and weren't feeding her enough and she cried ALL night long.  This night she just hacked and cried insanely all night long.  She was out of her mind.  She wouldn't listen to anything we said, she wouldn't calm down.  Her fever hit 104.4 at one point.  If I had never experienced what a joke the ER was, I would have brought her there.  But I knew all we'd do was sit in a waiting room for 4+ hours, while exposing her to who-only-knows what other germs.  So, we sat up with her, alternated medicine to keep the fever down and tried our best to keep her calm.  I have never seen her look this sick before and I pray that I never will again.  Her eyes were glassy and sunken in.  Her skin tone looked horrible, she just looked really, really sick.  This picture doesn't do it justice.

I took her to a Rediclinic on Sunday morning, because I figured she had to have some sort of infection, this was not normal cold behavior.  They said she had a sinus infection and an ear infection.  They gave us some cold medicine that tastes horrible but works great and some super powerful antibiotics.  I gave her both when we got home (thank heavens she's such a good medicine taker, it did take some bribing though) and put her on the couch to watch some Monkey (as she calls Dora the Explorer).  I went into the kitchen to clean up and when I went back this is what I saw.

She eventually woke up, started whimpering/crying and laid on the floor by the couch in just sheer exhaustion.  It was as if she wanted to cry about how bad she felt and then just decided she didn't have the energy.  She promptly fell asleep, on the floor, seconds after having laid down on it.  Here she is asleep.

The good news is her energy and smiles are back and her fever hasn't been over 100 since Monday.  Yay!  She still has a nasty cough, though.  The sad news?  Desmond caught her cold on Monday, this is what he looks like today.  He's right pitiful, but i'm hoping that we can fight our way through his cold without any infections.  So far, no fevers, so that's good.

Poor little guy, he hadn't even been crying.  This is just how he looks from all of the coughing and congestion.

It's been rough going over here at the Harris household for the past two months.  We appreciate any prayers and positive thoughts sent our way.  I'd love for us to all be healthy by Thanksgiving and keep it that way through Christmas!