Waking Up to Snow

The last seven days kind of run together in my mind--just a mess of feverish kiddo and doctor visits and spots and screaming and not sleeping.  It's getting better, though: the fever hasn't put in an appearance since Monday morning, the spots are fading, and I decided not to go back to the doctor today--the pediatrician ordered bloodwork, but told me not to worry about getting it done as long as Little Bear continued to improve. Little Bear seemed much more like himself by yesterday evening, and more so today.

A very angry version of himself, because there are at least two teeth trying to break through. But still, it's so good to see him running around and showing interest in toys and books again!

Thanks to the teething, he spent a several-hour block of last night waking up screaming every twenty minutes until we finally got up and turned lights on at 3am, changed him, checked to make sure the fever hadn't come back, and gave him another dose of Tylenol for his teeth. Today is following a similar pattern; periods of happy play and reading stories interspersed with angry screaming and refusing to be anywhere not in my arms. I'm so glad we aren't hosting Thanksgiving this year! Nothing has gotten done this week, and I don't think today will be much of an exception.

But I'm not complaining, really, because having a healthy toddler screaming at the top of his lungs because his teeth hurt is much, much better than having a sick toddler sprawled limply on my lap whimpering because he doesn't have the energy to do anything else.

And because this is already about as disorganized as my brain is right now, I have to say that temporal artery thermometers (the ones you swipe across the forehead) are the most wonderful things ever. Ever. The axillary thermometer we had been using for Little Bear since he was born regularly took up to five minutes to take his temperature, and we would be sitting there trying to pin his arm down, keep his other hand from grabbing the thermometer, rocking, singing, trying to calm him down so he didn't throw up, while he screamed and writhed and the stupid thermometer sat there taking its sweet time. We definitely didn't take his temperature unless we absolutely had to.

A few days into this latest bout of fever and screaming, Matt swung by the store and picked up a forehead thermometer. It took a couple of tries to figure out exactly where to scan, and we had to make a game out of it to get him to let us try it on him, but now Little Bear will sit perfectly still and scrunch up his nose while we slide the thermometer across his forehead, then exclaim "Ding!" when it beeps--in a matter of seconds, not minutes! I was a little taken aback when I saw the receipt (okay, "shocked speechless" might be more accurate; maybe "almost died"), but it's honestly worth it.

Now that he's on the mend and active and doing things like bringing me his boots to ask if he can go play outside, I'm noticing an unfortunate trend so far this winter. Snow took a long time to get here, but when it finally arrived, Little Bear got one day of playing in it before he got a bad cold and had to stay inside. By the time he got better, the temperature had plummeted far below 0 and he had to stay inside. Then it warmed up, and he got sick again. Now he is finally getting better, and it's only 0 out today but they are calling for temperatures to drop again. We have a winter storm watch in effect right now, mainly for snow accumulation; I'd better bundle him up well and take him out to play in it for a little bit this afternoon, or we will wind up having spent the entire month of November inside!