Secret Agent Josephine

Baby Bug got really sick last night. Her cold turned into a 103.4 degree fever. It was so scary. I held her little body close to me and she was burning up. I’ve never felt like she was so fragile before. Everybody says she’s skinny and little and all that… but to me she’s big because she’s so full of life. She’s loud and boisterous and jam packed full of action. When she’s in the room, she takes up the room. You forget how little and breakable she really is.

I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t think straight with her constant crying that could not be comforted. I couldn’t read the label on the tylenol bottle to see how much of a dose I should give her. I couldn’t do the math to figure out how much a 16 pound baby should take. I didn’t know if I should undress her or wrap her up. I just couldn’t think straight. And then when I did finally peel off her polar fleece pajamas, I felt horrid because they were making her sweat. It was obvious that she was burning up. What was I thinking? The poor little thing.

I tried to put the thermometer in her ear but she thrashed about as if I was trying to hurt her. It was impossible to get a good reading. If the thermometer said 103.4, maybe it was really 104 but a few degrees off because she moved so much… What to do, what to do? Should I take her to the emergency room? That place is a nightmare all by itself. I was beside myself with worry. Why didn’t I bone up on this stuff before she was born when I actually had time to read books and learn things? I was so mad at myself.

Thankfully, Toby is a bit more rational than I am in the middle of the night and he helped me hold her down so we could take a good temperature reading. He knows a few things about fevers and he assured me that she was going to be okay. I swabbed her forehead with a cold wash cloth and held her close. She didn’t really like the wash cloth but she did seem to cool down a little bit. Slowly the crying turned into sniffing and then she fell asleep on my chest. All night long she was restless and wouldn’t sleep unless she was right next to me. It was a long night. I love my little baby so much. I couldn’t go on living with out her.

All day long today she just wanted to be held. She wasn’t herself. It was so sad. She’d try to play or eat and she’s get halfway into it and then start crying because you could tell she just felt so awful. Mostly I think she was just too congested to do her normal things. Of course she has to have a pacifier in her mouth at all times (even though we are trying to break her of that habit) and that made breathing impossible. The only thing that seemed to make her feel better was to hold her and walk around the house distracting her by pointing at different things. She even let me sit and hold her. Usually she struggles to get away from cuddling. Not today. She was my baby today. She couldn’t get enough mommy time.

I had no choice, I had to take her to the doctor. The scary place where they give shots…

It turns out she has an ear infection. It’s nothing too serious. I feel bad now for all the times I stuck the thermometer in her sore ear. The doctor says it’s very common, and I know he’s right. I had ear infections so much when I was a baby, they had to put tubes in my ears. He gave me a prescription for some antibiotics and some instruction for tylenol and motrin dosage. I packed her in the baby carrier and off we went to the store for the prescriptions.

At the store she started feeling better. I hadn’t even given her any medicine yet but some battle going on inside her must have taken a turn for the better. You could tell she was feeling like her old self because she started straining to get out of the carrier and she wanted to grab at things again. When we got home, I fed her dinner and she drank plenty of juice. Then she played with her toys by the Christmas tree and things started to feel normal again. I almost was tempted to skip the antibiotics but I’m hoping they will stop the bad germs before they get to her lungs. I have nightmares about babies getting deep chest colds and croup. I know it’s going to happen someday but I just wish I could stay in my dream world where Baby Bug never gets sick.

Toby got to be the official medicine administrator tonight. Phew. That was fun. She hated the medicine. It was like pulling teeth just to get the right amount down her throat and not all over the place. I’m so thankful she’s not vomiting. It’s scary enough just with a crazy fever. She’s asleep now and her head still feels really hot but I think she’s going to be okay. I’m just not sure I am. This is just a little illness, how am I ever going to handle a big illness?