Ughhhh

I have one very sick little boy on my hands.

Rayce wasn't acting right all afternoon yesterday. I sent him upstairs to get the kids up from their nap, and he laid down with Charlize and fell asleep. He didn't eat dinner, which isn't very unusual, but then he didn't drin his juice, which is *very* unlike him. Then last night, he didn't want to take a bath. I told him to get a pull-up on and go to bed, and he did. Just like that. No fighting, no arguing, no whining. He just did what he was told, laid down in his bed and curled up. Something about this is very, very wrong.

So I gave the girls a bath and put them in bed, and I went in Rayce's room to sing to him and give him a kiss. He was burning up. My poor little guy :o( I gave him some Tylenol and tucked him in. He climbed in my bed at some point last night, and I sent him back to his bed sometime this morning after another dose of Tylenol. He woke up and had diarhea, and then started puking.

I do NOT have it in me to deal with this right now, but obviously, I have no choice. I have sooo much to get done in the next 2 days!! And if anyone else is going to get sick, it needs to happen now and not in the next few days.

Every time one of the kids pukes, I get these terrible knots in my stomach, because I am so terrified I am going to get sick. I can't tell if I am actually getting sick also or if it's just the knots in my stomach causing me pain.

Let me tell you about the last time I got sick...

I had been dreading something like this ever since Anthony passed away. It was my worst fear, realized.

The kids had a nasty stomach bug the day before. Puking, diarhea, lethargic, the whole 9 yards. I woke up in the morning just not feeling right. Mom had been up sick all night. Finally, it hit me too. Both Mom and I were SOOOOO sick as a dog that we couldn't move. My kids would not have eaten that day had my brother in law not shown up and made them sandwiches. Seriously. It was that bad. They had found some goldfish pretzles but other than that, they would have gone hungry. I was so sick I could barely manage to change a diaper. And in order to do that, even, the kids had to bring me the diapers and lay next to me on the couch. I could literally barely move. It was baaaaaaad.

This is what I fear most about single parenting. At least when there is another parent, who is equally both in love with and obligated to the children, there is someone else there helping. Even if Anthony had been sick also, he would have been holding puke buckets and doing what he could to help with the kids.

Mom helps *some*, but these are not her kids and she doesn't love them as much as I do and she is not as 'obligated' towards them. So she does what she feels like doing, but it stops there. It's most definitely not the same as having their Daddy here.

Nothing is the same without their Daddy here :'o(

I've been feeling very sorry for myself for the last few days. It happens every once in a while.

At the family reunion, I talked to my Aunt Kathy about the quilts I want to make for the kids from Anthony's clothes. She excitedly said she would help :o) Sooo, it has begun.

I want to have them finished by Christmas. Last Christmas was wonderful because sooooo many people thought of us and wanted to help us out. The kids got soooo many presents that they were sick of opening long before everything was unwrapped. The distraction was a HUGE help. This Christmas will be special because they will get their quilts.

My plan is to make one big quilt for each of them, to put away. And one smaller receiving blanket sized quilt for them to have, to hold on to, for now. On the smaller blankets I want to put a few pictures of Anthony with the kids. I'm worried because I don't have many pics at all of Anthony with either Dante or Liliya. But I have a few, and that'll have to be enough. I want to make several smaller quilts also for Anthony's parents, grandmothers, and his little brother and sister.

I've got a lot to get done. And no time to do it!