Sicky

After successfully dodging the illnesses that have been making their way around our play group, Paxton finally succumbed to what I hope is just a nagging cold. On Tuesday, he was adorably clingy in the morning and then slept for three hours during his normally much more abbreviated nap. When he awoke, I took his temperature and it was 103.0. Being selfish for adult time, I still took him to our playdate at Andrea's at 3. I warned the other moms that he was feeling under-the-weather, and kept him safely away from all the other children. At exactly the time that he is starting to be interested in the other babies, I was corraling him away from interacting with them. We stayed to our side of the room and all looked at Paxton with pity as we stumbled around with glassy eyes like a baby zombie. He was, as always, a good sport, and I took him home after an hour or so.

At the pediatrician's instruction, I rotated Children's Tylenol and Children's Motrin to help bring his fever down, but wasn't altogether successful. I think by Day Two of the first illness of '09, his fever was only down to 102.6. Knowing that my sweet boy is not the kind of child to sleep off a sickness, I opted to not cancel the lunch plans we'd made with our friends, The Clyburns on Wednesday. Paxton was a bit sensitive, and quick to shed a tear, but overall on excellent behavior at the cafe we dined at. He had Cristi practicing her discipling skills as he, one-by-one, dropped everything she offered him to the floor. Cristi began to pile up the toys she was no longer offering him. He has no concept that his little gravitational experiment could be viewed as naughty. No, he just loves to have any excuse to say "uh-oh" and watch the adults tend to his every need.

The nights were not as bad as I feared. The first night, he was up every hour or so, but was able to comfort himself back to sleep all but two times. It was heartbreaking to hear his little cough over the baby monitor. The second night, I needed to tend to him only once. However, he did awaken with the creepiest crusty nose I've ever witnessed. I cleaned him up as best I could before we rushed out to our CPR class.

That may have been a mistake. Even for a healthy toddler, sitting and listening to an instructor talk for two hours is a feat of gigantic proportions. Paxton was bored out of his head. He was the only toddler there. My two friends brought their babies, but they are barely crawling at this point, and so, able to be contained much more easily than a 13-month-old boy who is eager to show off his wobbly walking to anyone who will watch. He snooped in the EMS cabinets, finding the cleaning products. He opened and closed their kitchen drawers. He laughed when the instructor did mouth-to-mouth with the teaching dummy. He banged on closed doors. He generally just did whatever he could to entertain himself while I tried to absorb even half of what I was supposed to be learning. We cut out just before the end of the class when he began to cry with exhaustion and frustration. If we stayed a moment longer, I fear I would have joined him.

I strongly recommend all parents taking a CPR class and I hope to attend another on a day when Chris can go with me and my mom can watch Paxton. The information was wonderful and I feel much more confident about handling an emergency should it arise.

Despite washing my hands like an obsessive-compulsive, I was unable to avoid catching Paxton's bug. I did my own stumbling around today, with a low-grade fever, chapped lips, headache and runny nose. Thankfully, this was a day off work for Chris, so he was able to tend to Paxton while I had fever dreams in our bed. I'm coming to the conclusion that Paxton and I are essentially one person in these early years. If he gets sick, I get sick. I change his diaper, feed him, nurse him, pick his nose, kiss his cheeks, wipe drool off his chin and transfer it to my clothes. I stand no chance of dodging these germs. What's his is mine and vice versa, I'm sure. I'm pretty sure this is the beginning of a long line of sickness in this house. Break out the Vitamin C. We're gonna need it.

I slacked on the pictures this week, so I am posting shots from last Sunday's Tacky Party at my mom's house. This is a yearly event where the guests bring tacky gifts that are exchanged in a white elephant scenario. It incites great riots of laughter. We are all sure that the gift we brought is the wittiest, most clever, most tacky item on all the earth. We are all so pleased with ourselves, and rightfully so. The pictures tell it all.