Fevers, vomit and snot...oh my!

Baby is just getting over her first "real" cold. She had RSV at 10 weeks and has had the sniffles a couple of times but nothing that lasted more than a day. This time was different. Almost 3 days with a fever (her first fever) that peaked around 102-103, crazy amounts of snot in the nose and running everywhere and finally baby vomit covering me from the chest down. Poor thing. I managed to keep calm (yay, me) and not panic too much. We nursed LOTS, slept VERY LITTLE, and rested as much as possible. We did end up taking her to Children's Hospital on Sunday afternoon after the fever kept going up, up, up and she started to vomit. I was slightly worried about a bacterial infection. The doc was pretty confident it is just an upper respiratory virus. Her ears were clear and everything else seemed fine. We actually ended up giving her advil to bring the fever down and it worked within an hour. Neither of us wanted to have to give her any medication at such a young age but she was so miserable for so long that we really just wanted her to feel better. And we were scared. The fever disappeared by Monday and now she is just left with some nasal congestion and unfortunately, a nasty cough. Her energy is SO much better though. To celebrate, tonight she started standing up without holding on to anything. Eep.

Oh, and one molar is broken through and another is right at the surface of the gums. Teething is hard for Baby. Not fun. Especially on top of the cold. When I saw the molar popped through I wondered if it was a cold at all and not just teething related. But, we're pretty sure it was a cold made worse by teething.

I personally hate taking medication. I am super sensitive to it and often end up feeling sick from it. I can handle tylenol and advil and I have taken different medications in my life. I just don't like them. I don't like the way they make me feel physically and I don't like the way they make me feel emotionally. I feel like there is a pill for everything. We mask so much without finding out the cause of things. I know it's not possible to find a cause for everything but so often we treat symptoms with no regard to the cause. That's why I am so hesitant to give Baby pain medication for teething. I can tell when she's upset and I can tell "pain from bumping my head" cries from "I'm really tired" cries. However, I can't really tell "I'm in serious pain" cries from "something is wrong and I'm trying to tell you what it is" cries. Maybe that's the same cry. I dunno. I'm afraid of medicating every cry when maybe she's not in pain. Ugh. Just one more thing I toss around over and over in my head since becoming a parent.

And sleep again!

Ok.

So.

Once upon a time I wrote about how it seemed that people (moms, in my experience) seemed to be obsessed with sleep. How can I get my baby to sleep longer? Why won't my baby sleep? And so on. I also acknowledged that I too had experienced sleep deprivation short term and that perhaps if I was sleep deprived long term I may too be obsessed.

Well.

I haven't slept longer than 2 hours at a time for 4 months. Yep, I'm pretty tired over here.

I still haven't changed my feelings on how I respond to the lack of sleep though. I still strongly believe that Baby is waking up for a reason other than to drive me to completely crazy ;) Sometimes it appears to be teething, sometimes it's the curry that was for dinner (oops, sorry Baby), sometimes it appears to be related to new developmental milestones and sometimes it appears that Baby is just too busy during the day to nurse so makes up for it at night. Sometimes in the middle of the night I'll glance at the clock after she has woken up for the 4th or 5th time and I'll realize that we've only been in bed for a few hours. On those nights I feel as though I might lose it and I wonder if I'll ever get any uninterrupted sleep. Other nights I get 2 hours stretches and I wake up feeling quite rested and happy about the night's schedule. I'm usually very thankful that Baby goes back to sleep immediately after nursing for a few minutes and that I'm not up for hours or anything too disruptive.

I'm also very thankful that we all still bed-share. Even with all the wake ups and sore shoulders and sore backs, I honestly wouldn't change a thing. I feel confident that sharing our nights in close proximity was and is definitely the best choice for our family.

Even after 10 wake-ups in 8 hours...I still love your sweet nighttime cuddles, Baby!

Sleep!

So, um, Baby has taken 2 hour-plus naps today (each nap was more than an hour, not a 2 hour nap).

This, my friends, is BIG news at our house.

After 10 months of being a 30 minute cat napper, this is a huge change.

S predicts Baby will now go back to sleeping 5-6 hours stretches at night.

Ssssshhhhh don't jinx it!

Country Girl

I'm thinking about moving to a farm.

With chickens, a goat, and of course, our 2 cats. We'd grow our own vegetables, pick fruit from the trees in our yard, send Baby out to gather eggs for breakfast and work in the farm on weekends. There would be a beautiful 4 bedroom house with 2 bathrooms, a large sunny kitchen and family room, and light streaming in the many, many windows on the farm. And a guest house for guests. We'd be far enough from the city that it would be quiet and feel pastoral. But, we'd be within an hour's drive of the action of the city.

The schools would be high quality, our neighbours would be nice, like-minded people with small children and the community would have potlucks and a local farmer's market.

I've said before that the lure of living in the city is waning. What's important to me in a home isn't being close to the action anymore. I don't mind if the 24 hour restaurants and 24 grocery stores aren't within walking distance. I want a yard. And good schools. And a good community.

I go back and forth in my head about whether moving to the "country" would really be something I'd enjoy. In theory, I love the idea of a pastoral paradise similar to the one I describe above. Then my fears creep in and I think about feeling isolated, facing homophobia, feeling unsafe (yes, I feel safer in the city) and not being able to make friends with my neighbours. Then I realize that all of those things could be true no matter where I live.

So, I'm not sure what to do. I believe we'll stay put for at least another year(ish) and then maybe look at some options more seriously. I do love our home, so, for now I'm going to stay focused on enjoying where we live now and making the most of it. I know I'll miss it one day.

Flashback and goodbye

I just learned tonight that an amazing woman that I was fortunate enough to have had touch my life passed away on October 30th. She wasn't a family member or even a friend. But she probably, no she definitely, knew more about me that anyone else. And she helped me through the most intense, painful times of my life.

She worked at a place called Living Through Loss Counselling Society of BC (LTLC). I was referred to the organization, and specifically this woman, by someone at the BC Cancer Agency after I made a tearful call to their info line wondering where I could get some support one particularly tough afternoon about 3 months after my mom passed away. I called LTLC and left a message. She called me back later that day and offered to meet me right away even though her office was closed already. I ended up meeting her a few days later. It was a tough meeting for me and there were LOTS of tears. She suggested I attend her weekly group meetings for people dealing with loss through death. I went twice and found it way, way too intense. So much grief. So much sadness. I felt like I absorbed it all and was crippled with it by the time I left the sessions. I didn't go back and decided to 'suck it up' and move on. I was strong, I could handle it, right?

Fast forward 3 years later and another huge loss in my life sent me off the deep end and I realized I needed to go through the grief process and deal with the profound loss of my mom. Even after only meeting this woman 3 times 3 years ago I remembered her and decided to call her. She called me back immediately again and I went in to see her the next day. This was the beginning of my weekly sessions with her that went on for a year. Towards the end of that year I only went every 2 weeks. She was amazing. She listened without judgement, was unbelievably calm, funny, compassionate, intelligent and had such a profound effect on me and my life. I honestly feel like in some ways she helped me save my life.

I feel like I've lost a great friend. Even though, as I said, we weren't friends. I feel like a part of me is gone. I feel so much sadness that someone who devoted their life to helping others deal with death and grief and loss has lost their life so early. I hope she died with love around her. I know that she, more than most people, would have met death with wisdom and grace.

I'm so unbelievably fortunate that she touched my life. I'll miss her.