Hehe. No, really. She was extremely fussy yesterday (story to follow), but when I sat with her on the couch and put on the baseball game, she got very focused on the television and settled down quite quickly. Sorry, Michele -- it wasn't Ichiro that was up; it was Richie Sexson. However, I am trying to teach her the Ichiro chant. :o)
Grace has been congested and coughing for almost a week now. I didn't worry too much about it because kids get colds, you know, and she wasn't feverish or listless or anything like that. But on Tuesday, I took her temperature because she felt hot, and I was getting between 101 and 102 degrees. This is definitely not good. I didn't want to wait till the next day to take her to the pediatrician, and besides, it was already around 4pm. Tylenol won't tell you how much to give a baby to bring a fever down, so we went ahead and made a trip to the emergency room.
Of course, by the time we got to the ER, Grace's fever had come down to 100 degrees, but she was still really congested. The doctor at first chalked it all up to teething, which annoyed me a bit because Grace isn't teething, at least not like the doctor means. And I knew Grace was actually sick because she'd been around my friend's daughter, who's been sick for a few weeks now. The doctor ordered a chest x-ray, so we went to Radiology and had that done, came back to our exam room, and proceeded to wait another half hour. At that point, a nurse came by and said, "You know you have to go get another x-ray done, right?" Grrr. So we went BACK to Radiology, stripped Gracie down, and had a side view taken. Fortunately, it wasn't long after the second x-ray was taken that the nurse came back and told us that Grace had an upper respiratory infection, and here's ibuprofen, and Tylenol, and saline to loosen the mucus in her nose, and some decongestant even. Four hours after our arrival we were on our way home.
Grace is doing just fine, although she's sleeping more than normal. This is a good thing; she's getting better as she sleeps.
The only thing I am slightly concerned about is her pacifier use. I think I am going to have to be firm with her once she starts understanding me and restrict her pacifier to certain times of the day or certain places, like her crib. I just don't want to have a 3-year-old child talking through her pacifier. Now Grace can figure out how to put it in her mouth on her own, which is pretty darn funny to watch.
I can't just take the pacifier away from her either. Yesterday when she was being extremely fussy (right before I started watching baseball with her), I'd put her down in her exersaucer so I could switch up the laundry. She ended up screaming her head off. When I finally picked her up, she was so upset that she couldn't settle down. I held her and cuddled her, rocked her and stroked her. But she was just too upset and she kept screaming. I knew she wasn't hungry, she wasn't wet; she just wanted to be held. But she was too upset to realize I was holding her. The only thing I could do was find a pacifier, and once she was sucking on that, she calmed down enough to realize, Hey, Mom IS holding me! Imagine that! Then she was able to settle down and stop crying.
Speaking of baseball, I was planning on having Grace wear her pink Mariners outfit today. The weatherman here in Seattle promised me it'd be sunny and 70 degrees. I think he and I need to have words... It's overcast and only 55 degrees. Grrr. I guess Grace's Mariners outfit will have to wait for another day.