Improvement

We had a quiet day at home for the most part. I was on Baby A duty last night. I ended up holding her all night because she had a stuffy nose and seemed to breath easier when held upright. Around 3AM, I had to use saline solution to get some of the gunk out of her nose. She wasn't happy with me about that. She didn't eat particularly well yesterday or today.

On Saturday morning, Jeff got The Twins breakfast. Jeff gave Henry a bath in an attempt to soak his feet and get some of the dead skin to peel off. His face looked like it was in the process of healing, but he wasn't looking in tip top shape by any stretch. I can't remember if it was this morning or yesterday, but Henry looked into the mirror and kind of freaked out. It is difficult seeing his handsome face marred with crusty, red spots.

Miss R and I took Jackson, our cat who has had some medical issues lately, for a hydration treatment. Jackson often needs help from the vet to get hydrated. The receptionist was very keen on Miss R and said several times how cute she was. I put Miss R on the pet scale. She weighed 25.9 lbs.

We stopped by Grammy's house. I figured that Grammy could see Miss R b/c she isn't sick. The short visit made Grammy and Miss R happy. Both Miss R and Henry often request to see their grandparents.

Miss R fell asleep in the car and went down for her nap as soon as we got home. Henry spent the morning watch TV. I brought some Chinese food home. He ate a little bit, but I wouldn't call his lunch appetite impressive. Henry and Jeff had a fight about taking a nap. Henry was put done for a nap at 3PM and the slept until 7PM. Obviously, he needed his rest.

For dinner, Henry just wanted fruit bars. He can't fully open his mouth yet b/c when he does so, it pulls at the skin around the healing sores. I let him eat whatever he wanted. He wanted the fruit bars, so that's what he ate. He also had some birthday cake, which I had to feed him in much smaller bites than his normal bite size.

I made him soak his feet in the evening, again to get the dead skin to slough off. And I took small scissors and cut some of the dried layers off. In the end, his feet didn't looking quite so bad. And I'm hopeful that by Monday, he will be looking well. I noticed that after his nap, his facial sores looked better too.

Miss R wanted to soak her feet as well. So after Henry was done with his foot bath, I got another bowl and had Miss R sit and soak her feet. I put some scented bath salts in the water, which she loved. She called them candy.

Jeff took care of Baby A while I took care of the "big" kids. After feet were cleaned and treated, we had birthday cake while watching Stuart Little. Then, we listened to music and played the matching game. Something clicked for Miss R when it came to matching. She now "gets" what a match is. She did very, very well with the matching. I was happy for her.

After the matching game, we played dominoes...kind of. I thought maybe The Twins would be able to match numbers of dots, but it turned out that the dominoes were much more fun to use as blocks. Transferring the dominoes from the domino case to a party hat and back to the domino case proved a fascinating game that occupied the kids for 15-20 minutes.

I had words with Henry on several occasions. I could hear Jeff chuckling at my words: "Henry find the missing domino you had," "Henry don't run around with the toilet plunger. Put it down now," "Henry march [to the bathroom]....now!" etc.

One thing that we haven't been very good about is teaching the kids to spit. We don't put much toothpaste on their brushes as a result. So I located the step stool, positioned Henry near the bathroom sink, got a cup of water, and tried to get him to practice spitting. He ended up swallowing the water before trying to spit. I then said, "OK, Henry. Do you want R to show you how to do it?" Calling my bluff, Henry said, "Yes. R do it! I'm little." Lately, he's been calling himself "little" as a way to get out of certain tasks. I put R on the step stool. Showed her how to spit. She got it right away. A genius spitter. I was very pleased with her.

Then, it was bedtime. We read Hamilton and Peter Pan. Jeff had placed Baby A in the crib, so I then urged him to say goodnight to the kids (and hopefully have some soothing effect on Henry!).

I swear that parenting Henry is like the work of parenting three typical kids. And if I'm not completely gray from taking care of him in the next 5 years, I'll be shocked.