First fever

It's actually come and gone, but over Memorial Day weekend Seth had his very first fever. I know it is hard to believe, him being 16 months old, but it's true. I have taken his temp about a gazillion times since he was born (we had to several times a day in the NICU, for one) and this was the first time he's run hot. So anyway, of course it happens when we're away from home. And not just away from home but camping! He'd been pretty fussy all weekend and doing some serious chewing on the fingers so I knew he had some teeth coming in. Because of that I'd given him a couple of doses of infant tylenol just to take the edge off. But Sunday evening he added cuddley to fussy and when he laid his little head against my neck I could feel he was burning up. I have always brought a thermometer on trips with us, just in case, but this time I didn't because that's just the way life goes. It just so happens that my mom the nurse came prepared so we stuck it under his arm and lo and behold it was 101.6 - so factor in another degree and he was really probably closer to 103. Poor little guy took it like a champ though. He snuggled on my lap for a long time while I coaxed him to drink as much juice and water as I could. He fell asleep on my shoulder and when I put him to bed we didn't hear from him again until morning. His temperature was a little lower on Monday when he woke up and he seemed to be in a better mood while we packed up the car. He slept the entire 2.5 hours it took us to get home but when we got there his fever was back up to 103. Aside from his little body radiating heat and his nose starting to run, he wasn't really acting sick at all just really excited to see his kitties again and his toys! We switched over to ibuprofen which seemed to work a lot better and kept pushing him to drink more juice. Tuesday morning we did take him to the doctor just to make sure, although by then his fever had gone way down and never went back up after that. The doctor said he was fine and as long as he didn't get any worse we could just keep doing what we were doing. He said you can actually give tylenol and ibuprofen together, or whichever one seems to be working better. So a week later he has a little bit of a cough and still a runny nose but otherwise is back to his normal self. I am just counting my blessings that we have such a little trooper in our midst. Never once has he had a hard time sleeping throughout any illness, in fact he sleeps more when he is sick! And best of all, neither Eric or I seem to have caught whatever it was that he had, whew! Our little man is going to be 17 months next week and I have lots more to report on what he's been up to. I just need to take some pictures so you can see for yourself!