Hives
April 21st, 2008
Saturday afternoon, when we changing his slobber covered shirt, we discovered a quickly spreading rash all over his stomach and shoulder. We called the nurse line, they said probably “something viral”, maybe fifth disease, and wait it will go away in a few days. It didn’t seem to both him at all. He’d had a cold all week and maybe a low fever so some sort of random toddler rash was suspected. By bath and bedtime most of it was gone, and we thought not much of it. Until the next day, when it struck again. We were at a friends eating some passover leftovers when the whole back of his head broke out with the rash again. Since it was weekend walk-in hours at the pediatricians, we opted to have it checked out. After 2hrs of waiting at the peds (it went away and came back again in that time), our doc came in and said “hives”. The only thing is that we have no idea where it came from. He hasn’t had any new foods, and the context of each appearance of the hives was completely different. Doc gave him a dose of benadryl and said to give more if they show up again. He slept for almost 4 hrs after that benadryl, woke up for an hour to eat, and almost feel back asleep in my arms before sleeping the full night. Today again before and after daycare, we saw small patches of them but nothing covering large parts of his body, gave him a little more benadryl. Currently, we’re stumped as to what is causing them, though recent discredited suspects have been weeds, new shoes, pineapple, seasonal allergies?
Post-benadryl baby (didn’t even make in 2 minutes in the car):
baby's first antibiotics
February 11th, 2008
Yesterday, he seemed to be getting sicker than his run-of-the-mill, all-the-time runny nose and cough. We debated taking him to a birthday party at kidzu. In the end, we went and he played ( he’s a big fan of putting the plastic carrots from the garden into the watering can) and smooshed chocolate cake all over the table without eating any.
A few hours later he started to seem really stuffy and clingy so we took him to walk in hours at our pediatricians. He was starting to run a fever and apparently has a pretty nasty ear infection (which might explain his new head shaking.. we thought he learned to say “no”). Last time the doc gave us some antibiotics I opted not to give them to him, since there was no ear infection. Today he’s been much sicker and with the ear infection we decided to do the antibiotics. He’s got some of the good ‘ol pink stuff, amoxicillin. Ah, memories. Though don’t get me started about the lack of sunday evening pharmacy coverage here in NC.
A plague on both your houses!
December 19th, 2007
After getting his vaccinations at his 12-month check-up, Avery felt pretty crappy about the whole event. There was a lot of crying, and an interrupted nap, and it generally made for an unpleasant day. When we picked Ave up from daycare, he was running a fever and lethargic with pink little cheeks. We knew something was wrong when Avery actually stayed in one place, preferring to be held with his head on your shoulder. The photo evidence:
That last one he’s trying to feed Aunt Lisa the cracker we tried to get him to eat since he’d eaten like 3 calories since the fever started. In the middle of last night he was running a 102-3 degree fever, and waking up approximately every hour for comfort. Unfortunately, I wasn’t feeling so well myself (I suspect the germy doctors office door handles), and had my own fever and threw up. There’s nothing like a clingy, feverish baby when you feel like you’re going to puke, but I digress.. Today we’ve still been fairly out of it, but he’s feeling a little better since he played for a while before crawling over to me to cuddle up. Though, in the 4 hours since he went to bed, he’s already been up ~5 times. It’s going to be another loooong night. Corey, of course, has an immune system of steel and is unaffected by any of this.
Teething is a b*tch.
December 7th, 2007
As we speak….er, write.. Avery’s little mouth is pushing 3, yes 3, new teeth into the party that is his mouth. And he’s not too happy about it. Top that off with a nasty little post-traveling cold, and some separation anxiety and let the fun begin! He doesn’t want to eat, or have his nose wiped again, or be in a room without the mommy. And, now that he’s a full fledged crawler, he can follow me. Yeah sure, he says dada all the time and not a drop of mama, but who does he want to climb all over and boob dive at? Mommy. And that’s even despite the fact that I make him wear the warm hat with the chin strap so he can’t pull it off immediately. Tonight was really bad. We did the ora-gel and tylenol and it got a little better. Mommy is tired, on so many levels. Something tells me toddlerhood is going to be rough-going.
Oh. And here’s a picture of his head. There was a downpour while we were in Florida which Avery found absolutely awe-inspiring, particularly since we’re in a pretty bad drought, so there’s been none of that here. And it’s cold now.
In the end, sneezing is not as hilarious as we once thought..
August 26th, 2007
Avery started at a home daycare 2 weeks ago. Needless to say, Corey, Avery, and I have stepped onto the daycare sickness merry-go-round. Corey and Avery got sick from me about 3 weeks ago. And now Avery and I are sick again this past week. Actually, the first round wasn’t too bad, but I think babies breed some kind of super kid germs or something. I actually was running a fever and feeling sicker than I’ve been in years this time. Avery is chugging along as hyper and uncomfortable as ever. He’s getting over it now and mostly just coughing.
I went to La Leche League meeting a few weeks ago, and the topic was weaning. I was thinking of weaning, mostly because I’m producing even less now, and I have been so busy at the lab, I’ve been neglecting to pump. While I still hate it, I’ve adjusted to the idea of formula and bottles. My original thought was that I wanted to go to at least a year, but given all my difficulties, I’m amazed I made it this long (8+ months!). In a turn of irony, Avery has stopped accepting all bottles and especially formula. He’s taken an ounce or two at daycare occasionally, but most days he goes without drinking anything all day. The only thing he will do is breastfeed. I’ve started being diligent about pumping at work, but the milk-supply damage is already done. I’m considering going back on domperidone to try and get it up again. We can get him to take liquids (other than breastfeeding) by dropping them in his mouth with a straw. This is very distressing, especially since he needs to gain weight. We went to the doctor and they say he’s fine (not dehydrated) and to make his food really soupy and make sure he gets lots of fats. I’ve been mixing formula or this high milkfat greek yogurt into all his foods. We’ve discovered he REALLY likes yogurt. Even when he seems done with his food (usually a fruit or veg, some baby cereal) he’ll down 2-3 oz of yogurt.
He’s not crawling yet, mostly rolling. He loves being on his stomach now. If he sees something he wants to get to, he just rolls over, assesses whether he’s there or not, and then rolls again. He can travel a good 10-15 ft like this, so we have to be careful now. I’m thinking he’s going to stand up before he ever crawls. He doesn’t like bending in the middle to sit, he can sit really well but prefers not to. He either likes being on his back or stomach, or having you hold him standing up. I sense he’s learning to manipulate us now. He’s started to perfect his whiny cry, and even threw a fit when he saw he was going back in his carseat and didn’t really want to. Unfortunately for us, he’s inherited some personality traits from my side of the family. Even the daycare person said “he’s very strong willed”.
The first cold and sleep
August 10th, 2007
Avery got his first cold. I had a minor cold (sinus pressure, runny nose,coughing) a few weeks back. Corey then caught it from me and was much more miserable, and this past week Avery got it too. He’s been pretty snotty and coughing a lot and just generally fussy. I tried to suction his nose with the bulb thingy so he could breathe better instead of snort, but hes quite the squirmer. Corey and I had to both hold him down to get anywhere near his nose, and then he cried like the end of the world was coming when we successfully got some snot out. I figure he’ll be fine as long as he can breathe. It’s clearing up now.
He got very clingy the last few weeks. He gets upset if you even look like you might be leaving for a second. He also will just lay on my chest and look around now. The other night, he wasn’t interested in sleeping (everytime I put him down I’d hear the whine) and he just snuggled and laid there on my chest, eyes wide open. I let it slide and let him sleep with us since he’s been sick and coughing himself awake a lot. He usually just comes to bed with us after the first waking at night. He was sleeping through the night for months, and suddenly is back to waking up since our trip to california. Originally, I was planning on trying some sleep training to get him to stay asleep all night again soon, but lately I decided that in the interests of milk supply and stranger anxiety, that will wait until once the breastfeeding stops. Besides, I couldn’t do the “cry it out” method, I think its detrimental to the trust your baby has in you. I tend to subscribe to most (but not all) of the philosophies behind attachment parenting so I think he’ll be better off for it, despite what some certain people have said about our “holding him or playing with him too much”.
Anyways, it’s 1am and I should go to sleep before my time is up!
