So sorry for the sustained month of silence. It's easy to let optional activities slide by the wayside in our new life. Reid has affected every aspect of our life, and he is a new home planet around which we both revolve. Since we returned from Atlanta for Christmas, we've had little that was major and tons of tiny beautiful landmarks. Reid celebrated his six month anniversary on the planet earlier this month, and also contended with his first major fever, which had K and I in a genuine frenzy.
But first, the Christmas roundup part II. After we returned from K's family home, my family descended on us with a flurry of gifts, foods and light home renovation. My sister and her fiance gifted us a delightful TLC-like redesign for one room in our house. That meant taking Reid out of the house for a day of painting and off-gassing, but the result was a beautiful new office from which we can build endless bloggy goodness about our little man's life as it unfolds.
Other gifts were delectable clothing and whatnot for K and I, and more importantly Reid's second complete set of athletic-branded clothing. Reid received a fashionable University of Alabama one-piece outfit for Christmas from K's aunt and uncle during Christmas in the South. Not to be outdone, Reid's aunt and uncle, (my sister and her husband) made sure that the ACC was represented, giving Reid a genuine, infant-sized University of Maryland football jersey onesie. Both items are from Nike©, natch.
Then Reid came down with a fever. Although he had had an elevated temperature before, following vaccinations, this was the first full-blown baby cold with fever. We held it together as best we could as the little man slept the day away, consuming (without too much fuss) ounces of Tylenol and only being his traditional playful self for a short time before returning to crank brought on by illness. He slept a ton during this time, and it reminded us both of the aggrieved time when we first came home from the hospital and Reid was jaundiced, sleeping all the time and under threat of "light therapy."
After one day we were fine, concerned, but cool. After two days, we went into maintenance mode, taking comfort from a slightly lowered fever and knowledge that babies get colds. On the third day we called the doctor. We told her that he had a fever. She told us to give him Tylenol. This was the extent of the medical service on this point.
I understand, of course, that babies with fevers for three days are not uncommon. In fact, they appear to be more common than healthy babies. But at the time, as all parents do, we believed that our baby required
extraordinary attention. We felt that "keep giving him Tylenol" did not constitute
extraordinary attention. We craved more guidance. "Is baby Motrin better?" "They're pretty much the same." "Oh."
However, we soldiered on, administering Tylenol on a regimen, even setting our alarms to wake the boy in the middle of the night to dose him up.
There was an upside to this first illness, I guess. It was the remarkable facilty K and eventually I gained with the medieval torture implement known as the rectal thermometer. Reid had a real good temperment considering that we were sticking this device in his rear end about four times daily. Initially, we noticed that he would pee on us whenever we took his temperature.
"That can't be how it works."
"That's how the book says to do it."
"Does the book say, 'turn him over, put some jelly on the thermometer, insert it carefully, get drenched in urine, wait until thermometer beeps'?"
"Shut up."
On the fifth day of the illness, the doctors were called again, and this time, they told us to bring Reid in. I took him to the doctor and, for the first time, sat on the "sick" side of the waiting room. I was forlorn.
When the doctor saw us, I closely observed the taking of the temperature. It turns out that nurses, for whom I have a great deal of respect, only unhinge one side of the diaper, discretely slide it to the side
so that ths invariable stream of urine lands right where they want it: in the diaper! These nurses, they've got all the tricks. (Of course, we've sat in the room with the nurse taking his temperature in this exact fashion a half-dozen times before, but until you've been had the ultimate baby negative reinforcement, you don't really absorb that particular object lesson.)
The doctor cleared Reid of an ear infection and any other major concerns. He had a virus, and it would run its course. If the fever didn't break by the ninth day, bring him back.
The fever broke the next day. To say we were relieved was an understatement. In the universe of baby literature, there is a shocking amount of information about how something little and easily dismissed can blossom into a terrible, life-changingly bad thing. To speak of these things is like raising the dead, and I'll go no further. But we knew when our smiling little boy awoke fever-free on the sixth morning that we were luckier than anyone deserved to be. And that little smile was more rewarding than any gift we received for Christmas.
