All Better

The other night we had dinner with Finn's parents, Jeremy and Jen, and they mentioned that Finn wakes up from his naps totally happy. Like he just opens his eyes and starts laughing. Wren... not so much. She sort of snorts and snuffles and rams her head into her crib bars and then does this barking seal cry to alert us to the fact that she's -really pissed off- to be awake. Basically me as a 14-20 year old.

When you open the door to her room she flinches angrily from the light and tries to bury her face in her blankets, scritching around until you come pick her up. And she wakes up sloooow. For the next twenty or thirty minutes she just wants to sit on you, and maybe eat a bite of whatever you're eating, with frequent breaks to shove her hot little head into your armpit and fall back asleep. I'm okay with this. I totally understand not wanting to wake up, and I'm happy to facillitate as slow a waking as possible for Wren. Sometimes she reminds me of a surly teenager, with her sweaty hair and heavy eyes and her whole "don't mess with me" demeanor. She even lets out these long melodramatic sighs every few minutes, like the weight of the world is on her shoulders. But then after a while she starts squirming around and gabbering and wanting to get down and chase Ramona, and then she's normal happy Wren again. Give her some cheerios and a banana and she's ready to face the day.

Well on Sunday morning she was grouchier than usual, and when I took her back to bed with us to snuggle, she was like a little reactor. She smelled kind of funny and sour, and I could feel her super hot head burning me through my shirt. She's just sort of flailing around unhappily while Lazlo and I are going over the reasons why we are bad parents:

1. The children's tylenol ran out last time she was sick and we never bought anymore.
2. That thermometer parents are supposed to have... Yeah we don't have one.
3. The doctor's office is closed on Sundays. Do you have that backup number? No? I thought you had it...
4. Doesn't the doctor cost money? What day of the month is it? Uh-huh. Well let's just waitandsee okay?

Right. So Lazlo is dispatched for tylenol, and I walk the hot potato around and around the house because she REALLY does not want to be set down. Long story short- we buy the reduced-for-quick-sale Spongebob digital thermometer and wrestle it into Wren's wriggly armpit while she throws a perfectly understandable screaming fit. Did I mention we were in the car outside Von's? We're those parents. At least we didn't go rectal. Anyway, we gave up before the buzzer went off because she was at 101.5, which is high enough to freak me out. But Dr. Lazlo M.D. who-went-to-medical-school-for-seven-years was not at all concerned. Why? Oh because he read this website. And the website said that a fever in a baby is totally normal. Only idiots and alarmists worry that high fevers give babies brain damage. That old fashioned science has all been discredited by this WEBSITE.

I am happy to be told that I'm being a paranoid worrier by a real live doctor. But a website that I probably couldn't have used as a legitimate source for a report on the human body in 9th grade... I'd rather scrounge up the $10 for the copay.

Her fever stayed nastilly high all day Sunday and into Monday morning, when I took her to our wizened old pediatrician. As I was waiting to go in I heard the nurses talking about his last medical school class reunion. Turns our 23 members of his graduating class are dead, and he's one of like 14 still practicing. Yeah you guys thought I was exagerating- but when I say wizened I mean wizened. Anyway the verdict was mystery virus + red throat. No ear infection (woo-hoo) and probably not anything requiring amoxocil, which he gave me anyway. Poor Wren, who's usually so easygoing, screamed the whole time, which I could understand duing the rectal temperature taking, but not so much during his failed attempt to listen to her heart. I'm surprised she didn't blow out his eardrums. But perhaps they're long gone and he only pretends to use the stethescope.

Baby Lethargo ran a fever all day Monday too and I was really wishing I had one of those slings that expand as your baby grows so you can carry your 14 year old to school. Wren was extra clingly and usually I'd just tell her to get over it, but it's mean to make a sick baby sit on the floor when she wants to be held. She woke up this morning nice and cool, and seems to be more sleepy than usual, but otherwise she's back to her dog-baiting antics. It's nice to have her back to normal and I'm always so so grateful to have such a healthy family. Thank God.