Monday, April 25, 2005

Spring Fever

Gabriel's Monday picture 25 April 2005

Gabriel's fever got worse today. He's had it since Saturday, but it was pretty low-grade until this morning. Even his palms were hot, so it was time to take his temperature. We don't like to take it unless we're absolutely sure he needs it, since it involves an unpleasant process... anyway, about 10 minutes after a dose of Tylenol, it was still 101.9°F. He didn't really have any other symptoms, unless you count the runny nose he got when he was crying and trying to get back to sleep. The pediatrician's office said to bring him in, so we took him in at 1:00 pm. Dr. Barfield said that he thinks Chipdip has Roseola, which involves about 3 days of fever and then a rash of red dots. The incubation period would be consistent with the timing of his playgroup last week. There's nothing we can do about it except to continue the Tylenol to control the fever.

We think (and the good doctor disagrees) that another possibility is that he's getting a new tooth. Although the doctor thinks that a fever is not associated with teething, Matt happened to get both a high fever and intestinal distress every time he was getting a new tooth. Chip was doing a lot of sucking and biting on things today, so even if the fever's unrelated, he may be getting a new tooth. Either way, he's such a good sport when he's sick that we are really proud of him.

We got some of our cabinet latches installed today. Gabriel tried to open one of the now-locked drawers and got his little fingers stuck in the drawer. He was so brave, only letting us know that he needed help and getting over it as soon as we picked him up. He's such a trooper.

We went to Whole Foods today and got Gabriel a bunch of food, both raw and jarred, and we got a nice New York strip steak and potatoes (to be mashed) for our dinner. Matthew made perhaps the best seasoned steak frite we've ever had, and he cooked it to perfection. Gabriel really liked the mashed potatoes, as did we, which were pretty garlicky. That's a good sign!

For dessert, the two of us had a little piece of a new loaf of ciabatta. We think that this is the best loaf yet - it came out perfectly. That means that Patty has mastered hearth bread and ciabatta and will be moving on to a new project from the Bread Bible.

Gabriel once again fell asleep like a big boy tonight. Back when he was first born, and up until maybe about a month ago, we thought that parenting was so hard. Everyone said we hadn't seen anything yet and that it only got harder. That wasn't true for us. We think that it's getting better and better. Sure, he is running around and getting into all sorts of things more and more as he gets older, but we can handle that. He's a great little boy, and he's curious and energetic. Those are good things. The sleep problems that he was having were really difficult, and the contrast between the way he has been going to sleep lately and the way it was before is showing us that we weren't imagining things. Now we just hope that he's sleeping well because he's outgrown his issues, not because he's sick! Time will tell...