I wish it was an April Fool's Day joke...

...but I don't think it is.  As of yesterday, Jamison is sick AGAIN.  I don't know that he ever completely got over the original cold he came down with back in November, right after Cayden was born, but this will be the third (or maybe fourth-I've lost track) round of fever, runny nose, coughing, sneezing, fussing, yellow/green snot, and sleepless nights.  It's been a big worry of ours - what to do if (ok, when) he gets sick and how to keep Cayden from catching it because for Cayden, it could be very serious and easily put him back in the hospital. 

Our suspicion is that maybe these episodes of sickness are symptoms brought about when Jamison is teething.  Each time this has happened, we've also noticed an increase in drooling and then sure enough, within a week or less, he's got new teeth.   Is that possible?

But just in case it's not all teething related, we're trying our hardest to keep some distance between the boys and to be vigilant about washing our hands.  It's difficult, to say the least.  Jason is leaving town again this afternoon, so I'm extra anxious about handing one sick toddler and one susceptible preemie baby by myself.  Before we left the NICU, I asked the doctors and nurses how to deal with just such a situation.  They told me, "Do your best, but you can't keep Cayden in a bubble".  So I guess it's up to fate and good hand washing from here on out...

Cayden has been sleeping better the last couple of days, so that's been a huge relief.  He's been putting away some serious amounts of milk too - 90 or 100 ccs at a time (which is 3 ounces or more).  Plus, I've been letting him breast feed two or three times a day in addition to all of the milk he takes from bottles.  He seems to be tolerating it well.  Spit-up episodes have been infrequent, maybe once a day, if that.  We also bumped up the size of the nipple on his bottle so he doesn't have to work as hard to suck the thickened milk through the opening.  He seemed to be getting frustrated with bottle feeding, so we decided to give it a try again (before we left the NICU, they tried a larger nipple but he wasn't able to handle the increase flow and choked.)  Now that he's a little bigger and more experienced, he did great!  Instead of "milking" a bottle for 30 minutes, he will polish it off quickly, sometimes in just 10 minutes.  So with all of these little changes, we're hoping he'll continue to gain weight, sleep soundly, and do well.  Our next weight check will be on Tuesday this week, so we'll see how he's doing then.