stopping and starting, then stopping again

today has been an interesting day. i woke up this morning around 4:30 with fairly strong contractions, well strong for the beginning of labour. i tried to ignore them and fall back asleep but i couldn't, it was too uncomfortable, so i came out into the living room and put some tv on the computer to pass the time. i started timing the contractions and they were coming fairly steadily, about 5 minutes apart, so i thought maybe this was it? after an hour and a half i put a heating pad on my back to help with the pain, and laid back down on the couch. i guess the heating pad was doing the trick because the pain lessened and soon the contractions were getting farther and farther apart, and so i fell back asleep. when i woke up i thought maybe things would still be happening, but all day they have been sporadic at best. we went out for a decent walk to see if that would help, so far though, nothing to report. there was talk of having cohen go to grandma's tonight in case they come back in the wee hours, but in the end we decided he should stay here because he is sick, oh so very sick.

it is the strangest thing, last night he ate well and seemed in good spirits, no sign of sick at all, but when he woke up this morning he was a droopy mess with a whooping cough and a startlingly scratchy voice to go with it (when he said "mom" he sounded like a ninety year old man who smokes 2 packs a day). he slept a lot today and when he wasn't sleeping he was leaning heavily against one of us on the couch while he moaned. earlier in the afternoon we thought he seemed warmer than your average fever and took his temperature, it was 39.3, which is cause for concern, and so we gave him some medicine. tonight as the medicine was wearing off we took it again, 39.8 (gulp). he just had a luke warmth bath (which he wasn't so crazy about) and some more motrin, hopefully it will have let up come the morning. it got us wondering, if we do have the baby in the next couple of days will it be okay for cohen to see him/her? i guess we will cross that bridge when we come to it.

for those that read the blog regularly it may seem like cohen has been sick much more than usual lately, and i think that is true. for his first year i don't even remember him being sick. after some thought on the issue i have come to the conclusion that he is picking up viruses from the playgroup we go to at the community centre. it is like an open gym for toddlers where dozens of little people run around on mats and play with every variety of toy available. it is a great social activity for cohen, which is why we go, but i am wondering now if it is worth it. we hadn't been in a few weeks (last time he got sick) and then we went last monday. oh well, i guess it is all part of being a kid.

so will tonight bring more contractions? hard to say, but i guess we will know soon enough.