I noticed that Xander felt a little warm on Monday. And he was somewhat crabby, too. But I figured we were all still a little tired from our trip and just went with it. Yesterday I finally managed to take his temperature, and felt like a total jerkface for being impatient with his crabbiness when it registered above 102. He wasn’t showing many other symptoms of being sick, just crabby and hot and not eating much (a red flag for Xander if there ever was one). Still, though, he’s not prone to fevers (or, honestly, tantrums), so I cancelled the sitter I had arranged to let me go to a movie while JS taught his night class and did my best to keep him happy until bedtime, figuring the worst of it would be over by then.
Last night he woke up several times, his fever not going down much even with motrin, and would only really sleep if I held him against my chest. Which, you know, he’s a toddler now, so it’s not as easy to do as it once was. I tried, though, propping myself up in the arm chair in the living room, and draping a blanket haphazardly over my legs. Sometime around 2AM I had to put him back in his crib and try for a few hours of sleep myself, and then JS took over the midnight shift, rubbing X’s back, replacing pacifiers, whispering softly to calm him down.
All of this, of course, a result of his first ever ear infection. We’ve been incredibly lucky not to have had one of these yet, as this was one of those childhood ailments I’d heard so much about from friends, other bloggers, and whispers carried on the parent-wind that I fully expected each kid came with at least half a dozen pre-programmed infections, just waiting their turn to take the stage.
We’re all a little exhausted now, but Xander has his Pink Medicine, as I used to call it, and permission to stay in his jammies for a few days and watch as much Elmo as he wants.
