sick, sick, sick

One of the motivating factors behind starting this blog was to have a way to keep track of Lily's firsts. I did go out and buy one of those baby memento books - but really, who was I kidding? I got stymied with it because I couldn't find a pen that "wrote nicely enough". Sigh.

Anyway, I've come to realize over the past 14 months that there aren't only a number of firsts for Lily, there are quite a few for me and Gordon, as her parents. This past week has proven to be one of those. Lily is sick. Now she's been sick before - quite a few times this winter - a runny nose here, slight fever there, some coughing. It's always been unpleasant for a day or two, but nothing really miserable and no medication. This time however, is different. She started acting unhappy on Sunday at my Mom's. By Monday it was clear that she was coming down with something. But she was still well enough that I didn't think a doctor's visit was necessary. Tuesday morning Gordon leaves for a conference in Salt Lake City and I call into work to stay home with Lily.

That leaves me - at home - alone - with a sick kid. Right there, not much fun. However, by Tuesday Lily's REALLY not well. Still have a fever and just starts acting really out of character. She wants to sleep all the time, isn't interested in her toys etc. So off to the doctor's we go. He listened to her, checked her ears, did a strep test. She was SO good through all of it. Good news - no strep, bad news - not sure what's wrong - "it's probably viral". But he took pity on my poor "at home alone with a sick kid" self and sent us home with antibiotics.

So now I go to the pharmacy and have to register Lily there as a patient. That was kind of surreal - she's never needed medication before. It's also one of those "wow so I'm really someone's Mom, now" moments. (As if 12 hours of labor and 4 months of night feedings weren't enough to convince me of that). So off we go with our antibiotics in hand, convinced it'll all be okay. Wednesday comes, no real change. And now she's decided that being anywhere BUT in her crib is intolerable. Seriously. She just wants to lie there - it's breaking my heart. I call the doctor's again in a near panic. Once they figured out that yes I was actually calling because my kid cries hysterically when she's NOT in her crib they tried to talk me off the ledge. I guess most parents have the opposite problem. Not us - Lily loves her crib - go figure.

So here we are at Thursday. She went to day care today, but definitely wasn't her usual active self there. Good news is that Mimi got her to eat - I swear that woman is magical. I'm so glad she's on our team. However, the minute I got Lily home she insisted on going right to bed. I keep worrying that something deeper is wrong - but the prevailing opinion among polled medical experts (her pediatrician and my brother-in-law) is that if something was seriously wrong she'd be screaming ALL the time, not just when she's out of her crib. So tonight I will pull her into bed with me again and we'll cuddle and try to make it all better. Gordon gets home tomorrow morning - yay.

If this is any indication at how I'm going to emotionally handle discomfort in my kid's life I'm in a bit of trouble.

Hopefully I'll have my terrifically active and funny little girl back real soon!