Phillips Phamily House Arrest: Sophomore Year

The great thing about being a sophomore in the "school" of staying home all day everyday and never taking your little one anywhere- is that there is NO junior or senior year!!! This is IT!! That thought occurred to me about 2 days ago. I won't have to do this next year. It will be weird, but wonderful. I just thought I'd give everyone a little info on this year's plan.

I did a post last year about house arrest so I won't re-say all of that stuff. Basically, micro preemies come with lots of different things than the "normal" kid, so we have to do things differently. I know that is hard for most people to understand, but thats OK. Thats why I try to explain this sort of stuff. This year we are staying in not so much because we are afraid Kanyon will get super super super sick (like we were afraid of last year), but because he will STAY sick all season. He has Chronic Lung Disease which makes him susceptible to anything and everything that is out there. Kanyon is likely to catch things that other kids might not even catch, or they might manifest themselves more severely in his body. September prepared us for this because klp was sick 4 different times and each time it got worse and lasted longer. That gave me motivation to stick with this house arrest thing because sick baby all the time is NO FUN! We have been really blessed with a healthy boy that has proven to fight sickness pretty well, so we are very thankful. We just don't want to push it too soon.

Last year's house arrest was a success and we (meaning GOD and maybe my breast milk) kept the boy free from ANY sickness until about 2 days before his 1st birthday and that was just a mild runny nose and a low fever. We are hoping for another successful HEALTHY winter.

The biggest change is that we will be in Dallas 2 days a week for our therapy. That is a lot of exposure to germs, but we don't have a choice. We stay with Kasey in a kid free place and don't go anywhere!! Its a bummer to be so close to great shopping and eating and not be able to enjoy it, but that is OK!!

Thanks to our "church ladies" that keep Kanyon in his own classroom with his very own toys and blankets, etc. We are planning on going to church. We hope to be able to keep this up through the winter, but if things get to "sicky" we may go back to one of us staying home with him. These ladies are so great to do this for us!

Other than that, we are at our house. No eating out, no shopping, no nothing. We are back to having to steer clear of our friends and their children for fear of the germs little ones are ALWAYS carrying. We really do have the BEST friends here who are so understanding and help find ways to get me out of the house every now and then. AND they know I love their kids even though I don't come within a 10 ft. radius of them!!! Haha!!

The biggest thing is HAND WASHING!! My hands have already started to crack...no bleeding yet, but I'm sure that will come. Kory walks in the door from work and goes straight to the sink. We wash them all day long to keep from spreading anything. AND we wash them for at least 30 seconds...60 if we've just come in from somewhere. We are careful about holding other kids and then picking up Kanyon in the same clothes (I know it sounds extreme!). Our Preemie Doctor told us that this time of year, all kids are carrying something even if they don't know it yet, so its best to just stay away for now. No kids come over here and we don't take Kanyon to other kids' houses. He's pretty much friend-less this time of year. We keep our distance from anyone that is even almost sick. Lots of people say its allergies, but there is really no way of knowing that (even Dr's tell us that) and what might just be a clear snot runny nose to one kid, may be something different to us, ya know. We just aren't taking chances. We want to give his body one more season of this to grow and get strong and then we'll RELEASE HIM!! haha!

We obviously will not skip the holidays, but will just have to be very careful..annoyingly careful. We have wonderful families that are so patient with us as we try to keep K healthy.

We do have some safe places that keep us sane. We will go to healthy homes with no kids (or just tiny ones that sleep and can't move on their own!). If you see us with people don't think we're avoiding you because we don't like you, we're probably with these people because they don't have kids and you do!!! Or they don't have a runny nose and you have been sneezing and I noticed even though you didn't know it. :)

This year is already proving to be a little more challenging because klp is now mobile and active. He puts everything in his mouth and he touches EVERYTHING. Last year we didn't have to worry about him touching things. He wasn't really even chewing on his hands yet. All of that has changed so we are having to do things like wash HIS hands! Its crazy!

This will last through March, so it will be a long haul, but we're really OK with it. In fact, there is something to say for staying home and not running ourselves all over the place. His birthday comes at a great time (March 26) for marking the end of the cold season!

The question that keeps popping into my mind is "How will I ever go back to seeing the world like I did before I was paranoid about germs??!!" That is a post in itself, its amazing the things to realize are nasty and germy!


Here is my little house arrest buddy last year. Bald and cross-eyed and very very sweet.

Here we are this year! unpredicatble hair, straight eyes, and still very very sweet.

As of November we are in this thing full swing......Bring on the dry, cracked, bloody hands!!! Happy Weekend! I'm off to refill all of my GermX bottles!!