Playing with Bacteria

Ethan wearing the shirt* that his Tia Alani gave him, it's very fitting.

Two weeks ago Ethan got sick and this sickness has ruled our lives ever since.  It feels as if it's been an eternity.  Ethan got sick last Friday, the illness proceeded to infect Jeff and I.  Then it seemed as if we were all better and then Ethan got worse!  We ended up in the E.R. because it turned out Ethan had Bronchiolitis, and was having trouble breathing.  They gave him a breathing treatment and an inhaler, and he's been on the mend ever since.  The last two weeks have been a complete blur.  I'm down to 4 sick days at work, from taking days off to care for Ethan, and to take him to the doctor.  How the heck do other working mom's ever have enough sick days to care for their little ones?

Needless to say, we seem to be on the better end of this virus, and mommy is finally starting to feel like a normal human being again. Jeff was not so lucky and he's sick again, it just never ends! Is it Spring yet?

Unfortunately, this will definitely not be the last time we go through this.  As Ethan's onesie very accurately states, he loves to play with bacteria.  On a daily basis I take about 5 dog toys out of his mouth, he licks our carpet hundreds of times, and also loves to lick the dogs (I haven't even gone into what he does when we're out in public).  Yesterday he was petting Pauli (our cat), then suddenly he pulled her hair really hard.  She became startled and ran away.  Suddenly I heard him making sucking noises; I looked down and he had grabbed a huge handful of Pauli's hair and was eating it!  I was so disgusted and thought to myself, well this kid is going to have one heck of an immune system.

Although these have been tough times, there are 2 products that have made things so much easier during this germ infestation.  A cold mist humidifier has become a permanent staple in our home.  Before having Ethan I used to run a humidifier in our bedroom every night because of my allergies, and in 3 years we went through 2 different humidifiers.  I had never realized how hard a good humidifier was to find.  When I became pregnant my friend Claudia brought me a ton of her cool baby stuff and one of them was a Crane elephant humidifier.  This humidifier has been the best humidifier we have ever owned.  We run it every night in Ethan's room, and when he's sick we run it all day in the living room.  If you're looking for a really powerful, long lasting humidifier I highly recommend this one (they also have other animals if you're not fond of elephants).  We have walked into Ethan's room at night and had to squint to see through the fog.

The second product I recommend was given to me by my cousin Anabel.  It's the...are you ready for this? Nosefrida Snotsucker, I know silliest name ever! It works so well though, the snot sucker is true to it's name and one of the only ways we were able to clear his nasal passages.  I won't go into detail about how to use it, it's pretty self explanatory, just know that it works much better than those ball sucking things (I hate those things!), and it's really easy to clean.

*Ethan's onesie is from Cafepress, but just know that the sizes run small, he's 9 months and is wearing their 12 month one and it's pretty snug.