Fevers, Goodbyes, and No A/C!

That about sums up my weekend.

Clara has had a fever starting from when she woke up on Friday morning.  It has ranged from 99 to 104 in the past 3 days.  At one point on Saturday, it wouldn't come down from 102.5 and she wouldn't eat or drink anything... so to the ER we went.  They gave her Motrin and Tylenol at the same time, and she went from snuggle-y Clara to a more active Clara while sitting in the waiting room.  Once we got to the room where the doctor sees you, she wanted to play with everything.

Her Emergency Room anklet.

Dr. Vopat came in to check her out.  Her ears looked great, her tonsils looked great, and then they wanted a urine sample.  So, they catheterized her (she was surprisingly calm during that) to check her for a UTI.  The urinalysis was also normal (although they did a urine culture and those results won't be in until today or Tuesday).  So, she just has a fever, runny nose, and occasionally she doesn't want to eat or drink.  When they discharged her, they gave me lots of drugs for her: Tylenol, Motrin, Benedryl (since it looked like she was starting to get a rash), saline solution (for her runny nose).  I'm a walking infant drug store!!

I usually don't let her watch TV, but if that's what it takes to get her to stop fussing then we will watch some PBS.

That striped thing in the right corner is a pillow.  Just a few minutes before this picture was taken, she was laying with her head on the pillow.  Yet another clue that my usually SUPER active baby doesn't feel good.

Trying to look out the window to see the dog and saying "ga" while holding a box and eating Cheerios.  (You can hear that in the video below.  Sorry about the bad quality, it was shot with my phone instead of my video camera.) 

Last night, Clara was feeling better (since I stayed on top of giving her the Tylenol and Motrin).  I gave her a bath and I put her to bed, and she was happy.  She woke up at 2am.  She didn't have a fever then (although I take her temperature under her arm and her arms were cold).  Like she did Friday night, she wouldn't go back to sleep in her crib, so she spent the rest of the night in my bed... and I didn't sleep very well because of that.  At 7 o'clock this morning, she had a fever or 101.  This whole fever thing needs to end... NOW!!! 

And, what is better for your feverish child than... a broken A/C.  It was set at 72 all day yesterday, and by the time it hit 91 outside it just kept running.  The air coming out of it is semi cool, but the thermostat went from 75 to 73 then back to 74.  It was down to 73 by the time I went to bed (since I also opened the windows).  (Thank you to the people who burn fields and such this time of year for not burning them last night!!)  I put in a maintenance request last night, but since the temperature is not 76 or over they wouldn't come out right away.  It is 10 o'clock in the morning now, and it is already 78.  The maintenance man better come soon!!  (And, I hope the running A/C doesn't cause us to have to pay the utility overage this month, but I had to keep it running at night so that Clara has air in her room since she doesn't have the window open.)

Today is also the first real day of Special Forces Selection for Caleb.  We said goodbye to him on Saturday (luckily at the Manhattan airport, not KC).  He made it to Fort Bragg late Saturday night and stayed at a hotel by the airport.  I, being the worrying person that I am, was worried that he wouldn't be to his formation in time because he didn't stay overnight on post.  So, he got on post and then told me that he didn't make it in time to formation and got dropped!  It was THE. WORST. April Fools Day joke EVER!  He did get there in time, and he was VERY thankful that he didn't stay in the barracks since the fire alarm was beeping during the short while that he was in a room in the barracks talking to me (he didn't get much sleep Friday night with Clara being sick, so he was pretty tired).  Please pray for him for the next 3 weeks!

In other news... it's my 25th BIRTHDAY!!  The only thing special that I'm doing is going to be taking a nap, watching FRIENDS (thanks for letting me borrow, Meghan!), and eating ice cream since I can't go anywhere with a sick little girl.  Caleb did get me a box of chocolate on Friday, so that makes it a bit better.