And it lingers on… Saturday, September 27, 2008

Sleeping last night was a chore – seems she may have quickly gotten used to attention we paid her the night before, what with the sleeping next to her and feeding her every couple of hours.  She ended up being quite awake at 2am, ready to play – in fact I took her downstairs and let her play in the dark for a bit!  Eventually, though, the fun and games were over and we tried to get her to sleep… which wasn’t happening.  We plopped her in the crib and let her cry it out until she finally went to sleep.

At this point, she’s working a low-grade fever and is a poop monster… a touch of diaherra.  Luckily, unlike Alias Mother’s Buddha baby, our little one doesn’t seem to be pushing the bottle away.  She isn’t interested in solid food, but the bottle is still her friend.

Susan spoke to the doctor this morning and we’re to continue monitoring for major changes.  They want the diaherra to run its course in an effort to clear whatever is causing the problem.

I’m seriously starting to reconsider the flu-shot “booster” we’re supposed to get her next month…

The doctor says… Friday, September 26, 2008

… the fever is a combination of her teeting and the flu shot she got on Monday.

We’re to wait, watch, and provide tylenol.

The tylenol has been considerably more efficetive against the fever – she’s at 97.7 right now!

Not such a simple fever… Friday, September 26, 2008

A few hours after her dose of medicine, Olive’s fever was only down to 101.9 degrees.  At 11:15pm, when she re-awoke, the thermometer didn’t even hesitate to push all the way to 103.3 – the numbers just flew by.  We gave her a bit more ibuprofen to bring the fever back under control and we went through the normal routine to put her back to bed.

Except she wasn’t having it.

She slept next to us, on us, with us for the rest of the night.  Susan pulled the first shift with the little heater lying on her chest.  When Olivia woke, I took over, feeding her a bottle to settle her down.  After another two hours, Susan took back over, feeding her yet another bottle.  I figure the fever was literally burning the calories…

She woke up for good around 6:30am.  At some point, Susan had returned to the bed with the little girl, so she was lying between us in the bed.  Luckily her Mimi heard the cries and came to retreive Miss Olivia.  When I finally left for work around 8:15, Olivia’s temperature was 101.3, so they’ll be visiting the doctor this morning to cover all the bases.

We’ll post as we have more…

First fever (of note) Thursday, September 25, 2008

When I got home this evening, I found Olivia was crankier than normal.  She was just finishing up a bottle her Mimi was feeding her (Mimi and Pawpaw are up for a couple of days), and she nearly refused to walk over to see me.  She was frozen, in a standing / leaning position, in a whine / cry loop.  Eventually she mustered up the energy to walk over.

Immediately, having not seen her or touched her all day, I realized she was considerably warmer than normal.  Realize – this is my wife’s child – she’s a human heater like her mother, so her being warm isn’t always a shocker.  However, this time was different so we carried her up for a temperature check – 103 degrees, rectal.

We gave her a dose of children’s ibuprofen and then I laid her on my chest for her to nap.  After a slightly fitful, and sweaty, nap, she woke up feeling much better.  I sat her on the floor and she crawled straight out the nursery door into the master bedroom, indicating to me that she was ready to move on.  Since then she’s been quite reasonable, with her temperature much cooler to the touch.

Susan spoke to the on-call pedeiatrician during Olivia’s nap and there wasn’t much for us to learn – monitor the temperature, her output and her personality.  If anything go south, head to the hosptial or call them back for further evalutation.

Oh – which reminds me: yesterday evening, she and Susan were playing in the living room when Susan realized Olivia was bleeding!  After a little cleanup, it was obviously coming from one of those four teeth.  Our p

oor little girl, these teeth are tearing her up.

9 month checkup! Tuesday, September 23, 2008

We went for Olivia’s 9 month appointment yesterday – she’s 29.5 inches tall and 21.2 pounds.  She’s healthy and only had to endure a flu shot.

In other news, today is our second wedding aniversary.  We plan to… stay home and tend to a teething child.  She’s pushing 4 teeth it once it seems – a pair on top and on bottom, just to the sides of her existing sets.

Feet and Teeth Friday, September 12, 2008

Feet.  Olivia walks.  Not a lot, but it’s no longer a coincidence.  She has taken 4 – 5 steps in sequence.  However, when I discussed “walking” with my buddy Randy earlier this week, we kind of decided the video time is when it’s something around 10 steps.  It isn’t quite her preferred method of motion, but it’s improving quickly.

Feet.  Susan’s knees hurt tremendously when she runs, but not if she speed walks.  Seems her 5K run will become a 5K speed walk.  Despite the set back, it’s still a great motivator and she seems to be pleased with any exercise driver at this point.  I wish we had the room in the budget to go a running shop to get her custom fitted into running shoes, as I’m fairly convinced this would reduce the pain.

Teeth.  Olivia must be getting some.  That or she just felt like torturing her mother in the wee hours of Wednesday morning.  It was probably the worst night we’ve experienced since she was a newborn with GERD and some sort of intolerance to her only food source.  She feel asleep mid-scream, even.  And Thursday when I got home, her eyes were already circled in pink, indicating she was ready to pass out.

Teeth.  A month or so back, I went to the dentist for the first time in around 8 years.  Just thought I’d pass that along.  They said it wasn’t as bad as they would have expected, and I guess it wasn’t quite as painful as I thought it would be…

Amusing statistics Sunday, September 7, 2008

(This is a bit of a cop-out post.  We’ll give you a real one… tomorrow?)

I was doing a bit of organizing of the photos and came to realize that last month we were pitiful on the picture taking and this month we aren’t on course to set any records.

First month: 116
Second month: 308
Third month: 281
Fourth month: 87
Fifth month: 100
Sixth month: 297
Seventh month: 141
Eighth month: 23
Ninth month: 34 (currently)

We do have a bit of video that falls into the 8th / 9th realm that hasn’t been uploaded.  That must count for… what… 50 photos?  Each?