Feeling relieved

It's a tough thing to have a sick kid. The not knowing how sick they really are, and when they're going to turn the corner. 

Lachie has been quite sick this week with an ear infection and subsequent ruptured ear drum. I'd decided to not take him to the doctors for the ear infection, and tackle it without antibiotics. We continued on that path after his ear drum ruptured. A ruptured ear drum can't be fixed with antibiotics anyway. 

But his ear infection continued for several days. We treated him with lots of sleep, ibuprofen, heat packs on his ear for pain, and gentle tea tree oil and lavender oil massages around the ear area (nothing in the ear). 

On Tuesday night  (four nights after the ear drum ruptured) he seemed worse and I started to worry that I'd done the wrong thing. I decided that if he woke up Wednesday still really sick, I'd take him to the doctor. A little mummy guilt crept in as I watched him sleep. 

Jamie cried that night. He wanted his brother and his best friend back. I wanted my joking, happy little boy back too. 

That night, he slept through for the first time since the Wednesday before. 

Wednesday morning, he woke brighter, ate a little breaky and went to lay on the couch. I had a meeting next door, so went and left him resting. I got some odd looks from other parents about the lack of antibiotics. 

He ate small but frequent amounts that day, and didn't ask for pain relief until 2.30pm, when he had a heat pack and settled for a sleep. 

When he woke, his brother was home from school and they played. Jamie was happy. 

He went to bed early again that night, but again, no pain relief. And yesterday, he went back to school. 

Someone outright asked me if I felt guilty for not giving him antibiotics. I held my ground and told them how proud I was of him for being brave and that we believe we've done the right thing - his own body fought off the infection, and it can do it again if it needs to. 

He still has a discharge from his ear and we keep it covered, but he was feeling much better yesterday. School wore him out and he had a very early night. 

This morning, when he came to the kitchen, he was bright and bubbly, describing in full detail the scene he'd just read in his novel. It felt so good to see him back to himself again. 

His strong little body fought off the baddies. His immune system is now more equipped than it used to be. And I feel pleased that we took the alternative route, but also relieved to have my smiling, happy little boy back again. 

All in a weekend

It's one of those Monday mornings when we feel like going back to the office/school/daily chores is the restful part of the week.

It began Thursday night with a boy complaining of earache. I instantly began treating it in the same way that I treated my last ear infection, and he felt some relief. We continued with the treatment through Friday while he stayed with me and slept through a lot of the day. 

Stu was our other patient. He woke to find that his nearly two week old wasp sting had become a hand sized area that was red, raised and hot. I was concerned it was infected, and not knowing how to treat it, sent him to the doctors (antibiotics for him). 

Debutante Sarah and Birthday boy Cody

 

Friday was my little brothers 17th birthday and my little sisters deb ball. Our house is in the middle of my families', so we met here for deb preparations (I was employed as makeup artist!) and birthday celebrations before we left Stu, my other brother and the three kids here and went to the ball. Sarah looked beautiful and had a great time. It was nice to watch my teenage siblings interacting with their peers and I enjoyed catching up with one of my high school teachers who then became a colleague and who is now retired. 

My gorgeous sister-in-law, mum, little sister and me!

 

I was also lucky enough to have my two best dancing buddies at the deb (for another debutante and friend), so we spent time together and the girls drove me home. 

With my crazy dancing buddies

 

I arrived home to find the sick one still up. He needed more treatment and pain relief. I settled him to sleep and went to bed. Next morning, the need for his pain relief became obvious - his ear drum had ruptured. I had moments of questioning whether my home treatment was the best action, but decided that even if I'd taken him to the doctor, the result would have been the same. I adjusted to treatment to a warm, moist washer with a little tea tree oil, held over the ear. The warmth relieved the pain and the steam gently softened the discharge without putting anything in the ear. 

We abandoned screen free Saturday and curled the two kids on the couch for a pyjama day and Harry Potter movie marathon so that the sick one could rest. 

Meanwhile, we donned our working gear and headed outside. The weather was against us (I know I begged for rain, but really?), but we soldiered on and (without any fighting!!!) built a shed. It's our third flat pack shed and we were impressed both with how well built it was and also how much better at putting them together we are now!  We completed the build except for a few finishing touches and secured the shed in the very last light of the first official day of winter. 



The dairy with plants just dumped in front - need to plant edible perennials there, any suggestions?

 

Sunday dawned, the sick one a little better, the shed still standing (woohoo!). Stu and the Jamie completed the shed build while I did some important chores like baking bread, washing and nursing. 

The shed was complete by morning tea time and we set to work up-cycling some materials for the beginnings of a milking stand and planning the layout that would turn our shed into our home dairy. 

Then we turned to fencing. 

The shed and fence! Ta-da!

 

The side of the shed/dairy forms one side of the goat pen, and our fence continues around from there. Stu had the brilliant idea of building the fence around the hills hoist washing line.  This gives the goat pen more area than I had originally envisaged and also gives a nice look to the garden (or it will when I've turned it into 'garden'). But it is harder to build a hexagonal fence than a straight one, and we ended up taking ages messing around with angles and things to get it right. But it's done!  I just need to finish attaching wire and then we have one more section and the gate to do. 

So it was a very tired family who gathered for a quick thrown together meal last night. 

I'm still on nursing duty today, but I'll take it a bit easier and deal with some of the smaller jobs. It does make you feel good though to get so much done over a couple of days and really begin to see a project come together. 

Did you tackle a big project this weekend?