First there was the fourth of July weekend, starting on July 3rd, which may have been a working day for some, but was a holiday for the pediatrician's office. That was the day that Shreya decided to wake up in the morning with a fever of 101F. She had no other symptoms, and was, for the most part even quite cheerful. We sent the pediatrician an email, gave her some Tylenol (the infant version) and decided not to worry about it. But when it was 103F the following day, still with no symptoms, we were advised by the 24-hour nurse line to take her in to the Pediatric Urgent Care, where
They examined her chest
For a rash
And the rest
Of her body for swellings and lumps.
No, wait. That was Christopher Robin. Shreya didn't have sneezles or wheezles. That was the whole point. She didn't have any symptoms, which is what made it So Very Alarming. However, what they did do was virtually nothing. They looked at her eyes and ears for infections, and listened to her lungs. Then they pronounced her to have a fever, told us to give her Tylenol and sent us home $50 poorer! Still, it was better than if she had had an ear infection or something bad. Saturday evening, we had an email back from the pediatrician that it was probably a virus, and not to worry, it would probably clear up in a few days, and if not, we could bring her in on Monday or Tuesday. In the end, it turned out to be a fairly textbook case of roseola, or "baby measles", a virus whose telltale pink rash appears after the three-day fever has subsided and the baby has ceased to be contagious. After all the excitement is over, in other words.
All in all, we had a not particularly holidayish long weekend. One of the nights (I think it was the 3rd) there were fireworks, probably at the state fairgrounds, which were visible from our street corner. So we took her out to see them, but she was rather frightened by the accompanying booming, so we brought her back indoors almost immediately.
In the midst of this excitement, she also got teeth. The first had already begun to appear on July 1st, but a second one started to cut through within a few days of that, so now she has two!
Here she is with her rosy rash and her two new teeth. Smiling in spite of it all!
Then on Friday the 11th, Shreya and I went to the playground in the cool early morning. Shreya enjoyed being strapped to my chest and going down the slides and swinging on the swings. On our way home, she fell asleep in the Bjorn. I walked along, minding my own business, enjoying the morning which was just starting to get hot. And then, as I looked at some gorgeous sunflowers in somebody's yard, instead of where I was going, I stepped on the edge of the pavement where it slanted steeply to a driveway, and twisted my ankle. The yelp I gave woke up Shreya, who started to howl in harmony. We had to sit ourselves down, right there on the sidewalk, and wait for Tom, whom I telephoned, to come with the car and drive us home. For three days, I couldn't walk at all, and even for the rest of the week I only hobbled from one room to another. I had been planning to take Shreya to the lavender festival on Sunday, and the Aquarium on Monday. It only takes one second for such plans to change...
You might think that with all that lying around with a game leg, I would have had plenty of time to do more frequent updates on the blog. Somehow though, it didn't work that way. In the last week, Shreya has become quite attached to Daddy. It did not take her long to figure out that at least for the moment, Mommy tries to get her to play in one spot, while Daddy is the one who carries her around and takes her outdoors. Sigh.
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