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We stayed home yesterday because Mikey still had a fever. It kept going up and down up and down so finally I gave in and took him to the doctors. She looked him over, no sign of an ear infect, thank god! She did say that it could be roseola. She ran a CBC and it showed that he is fighting off something viral but if it is roseola we won’t know until the fever is gone and a rash appears. He had a fever at 5am this morning but so far its been staying down. Hopefully it’ll stay down so that I can return to the office tomorrow and he can return to daycare in time for Santa’s big arrival on Friday.

Last night since Mikey was in a good mood we practiced walking but this time I tried something different. I’d stand behind him so that he could lean on my legs if he was to drift backwards. Then I leaned over him and put my hands in front of him and wiggled my fingers so that he could walk and reach towards my hands. Well he took 1 step last night, thought it was a fluke so I retried it today since he woke up from his nap in a good mood. He took 2-3 steps this time and got all excited he’d run in place. He did manage to fall backwards on the tile and hit his head really hard but it only took about 5 minutes to calm him down. He’s acting normal so I’m sure he’s fine. But YAY he took his first steps completely unassisted! Guess I’ll be getting the one thing I want for Christmas after all!!!

Yesterday afternoon Mikey came down with a slight fever. I immediately gave him some tylenol and that brought it down by batch time last night. All night long he was tossing and turning and complaining in his sleep. I knew something wasn’t right but I didn’t want to go in there unless he was crying which he wasn’t. I got ready for work at my normal time of 5:30 and did my thing. Put our stuff in the car and when I went to get him at 6:30 he felt really really warm. So I immediately took his temp. It was 101.6, I immediately gave him a dose of motrin.

The cutoff at daycare is 102 and when I asked daddy for his advice he recommended that we stay home. Thankfully I can work from home but still trying to work with a sick baby isn’t easy stuff! I’ve been monitoring his temp ever since then. And it appears to be going down but its still over the 101 marker which is what the pediatrician says is when they want you to start medicating.

So no PT today. What sucks is today is a day he’d need it the most because he’s tilting REALLY bad. The TOT collar isn’t even helping him with that.

Last night daddy noticed some goo coming out of Mikey’s right eye. His eye was a little red too. I was hoping it was nothing but he insisted it was pink eye. I waited until this morning to see what his eye was like before deciding on whether we were going to the office or not. Well when we got up this morning his eye was practically welded shut, I had to use a baby wipe to clean the dried goo off of his eyelashes. He thought the entire episode was hilarious though and was cracking up while I was cleaning off his eye. I got an appointment at the pediatrician’s office for 9:20 so we get there and the wait is horrendous, this is what I’m used to and I can’t stand it. After waiting 40 minutes in the waiting room we get called back. The doctor comes in looks at his ears, one ear still has fluid but she said it can take a month for that to clear up. I had no clue! She said that he definitely has pink eye. He can’t go to daycare until his eye isn’t red anymore since it is contagious. She said it can take anywhere between 48-72 hours for it to clear with the eye drops were were given. So I’ll be working from home for most of this week because of that.

Oh and while we were in the waiting room I had given him a teething ring to play with since that was the only toy I had and I noticed a new tooth had come up, apparently it wasn’t a big deal for him. So that brings him to a total of 10 teeth with 1 molar still trying to break through.

Wow that was fun. Even though I have suffered from hives its been a couple of years since my last episode so I didn’t really remember what to expect on how long it should last and so on and so on. So here’s a recap of the last few days….

Thursday – Wakes up with hives and a swollen eye because of it. Put on benadryl.

Friday - Mid-day we left for Orlando with daddy’s company since they were putting us up at the Portofino Bay Hotel at Universal and gave us 2 park 1 day passes for the both of us, Mikey was free of course. ;o) Went to a reception they had that night by one of the pools and Mikey was juts covered in welts. Had to explain to everyone that saw him that he had an allergic reaction to penicillin and that its nothing contagious. The reception was nice. Mikey ate some turkey, he INSISTED on having some turkey so he had some turkey. Later that night I gave him an aveeno bath and put him to bed in his little tent. He played in it for a LONG while. Did NOT want to go to sleep at all, but he ended up passing out and so did we. Around midnight he wakes up screaming and I couldn’t get him to stop crying so I took him to the bathroom to look at him and one of his eyes was swollen almost shut. Daddy ended up getting up and was able to calm him down enough so that I could give him some tylenol. I even called the pediatrician and spoke to the on-call doc for advice. I was ready to go to the hospital if he said go. But he didn’t, thankfully. He said to keep doing what we were doing.

Saturday - We all woke up around 9ish. Mikey’s eye was still swollen and he was still covered in welts, but its was more large round red spots but weren’t raised like they were the night before. So progress for sure. He was dosed up with his benadryl AND tylenol and we headed to the parks after breakfast. There weren’t many rides he could go on but he was allowed on ET, in his own seat like a big kid, and on a few rides in the Dr. Seuss area in Islands of Adventure. Most of the time we did a baby swap so that each of us could get a chance on a ride. Thankfully we had an express pass so we were in and out of a ride within minutes so there was no need to lug Mikey into a big line with us while we did the official baby swap, he just hung out in his stroller where he was comfy. That night we stopped by Downtown Disney because I HAD to go to the Christmas shop to check to see if they had a Pooh stocking since they didn’t have it when we were there in July. Daddy insisted that they would NOT have it and guess who proved him wrong! ) So yeah he now has a Pooh stocking for Christmas and the cutest Eeyore stuffed elf. It was too cute to resist. We also stopped by the Pooh store to see if we could find an outfit for his birthday party. I didn’t find anything there that I cared for but I did find a cute onesie at another store over there. Afterwards we went to Pizzeria Uno for dinner. I gave Mikey his baby food but when he saw my pizza he would look at me then look at my pizza, then look at me and then look at my pizza. So I cut a few pieces and had it cool off and the kid LOVES him some pizza. He’s definitely Italian. )

Sunday - Mikey woke up with absolutely no welts on him. We were to still give him benadryl for an entire day once we saw there were no welts so we continued with that for the day. But he was definitely back to his old self again!

This morning we left for the office like we normally do around 6:15. Since its still dark out I don’t even bother turning the lights on in Michael’s room. I just grab him out of his crib and head straight for the car. He acted fine during our hour drive. When we got to the office I noticed one of his eyes was swollen. I immediately thought hmmmm pink eye? But looked at his eyeball and it was white so it couldn’t be that. I chalked it up to him being a boy and bumping into his crib at night or something. I put him in the stroller and off we went upstairs. He had his back to the stroller until we got inside when he sat up to investigate stuff. Well at that moment I saw that the back of his neck was bright red. I stopped the stroller and had a look at his body and low and behold he had hives all over his body. Some were huge welts and some were tiny bumps. I went to my desk and immediately got us an appointment with his pediatrician and went straight there.

The doc looked him over asked me if he had anything new and he hasn’t so he is chalking it up to him being allergic to amoxicillan since he’s been on it for 6 days. Apparently its common for babies to have a delayed reaction to it. He looked over his ears and one is perfect but the other is still a little red, but he wants him off of the antibiotics completely. He figures his body will take care of the rest. He prescribed benadryl every 6 hours. So we stopped by Walgreens on our way home and bought that and some Aveeno Baby oatmeal bath. As soon as we got home I gave him a dose of benadryl and plopped him in the bath. Here is a pic of him with the hives in his bath:

So after our PT appointment last night I was worried about the eye goop especially since a close friend of mine has a daughter that is 3 weeks older than Mikey that was just diagnosed with a double ear infection and conjunctivitis. She had eye goop because her ear infections were draining into her eye. As soon as we got home I took Mikey’s temp and it was only 99.8 which isn’t quite a fever but it is hot for Mikey and I personally consider it a low-grade fever for him. I went ahead and made an appointment with his doctor for this morning.

We got there this morning and the wait was the best wait yet. We were called to the back within 10 minutes and 5 minutes later the doctor was in our room. She saw Mikey as she walked in and saw how bad he’s tilting. She asked me about the specialist and I told her the latest on that. She said that she wanted us to go see an opthamologist just to rule out that there is something wrong with his eyes causing him to tilt. If that comes back ok she wants us to get a catscan to rule out any issues with his brain. It’s nice to know that she doesn’t just want to go with the torticollis diagnosis and wants to rule out any other possibilities, but I’m 100% sure it is torticollis alone.

Well she looked over Mikey and as soon as she looked at his first ear she said he definitely has an ear infection and then she looked at his other ear and he kinda pulled away and commented that the 2nd ear was worse. So he’ll be on amoxicillan for 10 days.

I just KNEW something beyond the molars was making him feel so crappy and I’m so glad I took him to the doctor. The last 2 times he has gotten upper teeth they came in pairs and each time he ended up with a bad cold that included an ear infection so I knew there was a good chance he’d get sick and I was right.

Hopefully he’ll start feeling more “normal” soon.

Oh and update on molar’s #2 and 3. One finally cut through his gums but its only the tip, there is still a whole lot of tooth left to come through but its a start.

So this past weekend Mikey was acting fussier than normal. I gave him tylenol a couple of times to help soothe him, but it wasn’t too unmanageable. Today we got up at 6 like we normally do on the days I go into the office. The entire hour long commute he was sitting in the backseat whimpering. I knew something wasn’t quite right. Since I had my trusty bottle of tylenol as soon as I parked the car I gave him a dose of tylenol figuring that’ll take care of him. We went upstairs to my “office” and I changed him out of his pj’s and gave him his bottle. He gave me a hassle with his bottle but he has been doing that a lot lately so I didn’t think anything of it. We went downstairs to daycare at 7:30 and I put him in the highchair and gave him his pancakes. As I was leaving he turned and it looked like he was going to start crying but his teachers were able to distract him.

So I went up to work thinking he’s fine no big deal, I’ll see him in a couple of hours anyways. I get a call an hour later and they tell me he’s been crying hysterically the entire time and they wanted to know if he has been like this all weekend. I told them he was miserable but not too bad and that I had given him tylenol at 7 so I can’t give it again until 11. I also told them if they needed me to just call me back and I’d come down. Well not even half an hour later the phone rings again, its daycare, they ask if I can come down because he’s shaking and feeling cold and still crying.

I get down there and he’s crying like crazy in clear P-A-I-N! For some reason the tylenol did NOTHING for him in 2 hours!!!!!! I was able to hold him and calm him down but he’d fall asleep in my arms whimpering in his sleep. I felt so bad. They had taken his temperature (while crying) and he had a fever of 101.8. So I handed him off to a teacher so that I could run upstairs to collect my things and I made a quick call to the doc to get us an appt.

We immediately left to the doctor and they looked him over and even did a CBC but nothing came up. The doctor we saw said it couldn’t be teething since the fever was high. It was 102 but once again they took it after he had been crying. When he cries he makes himself hot so if he has even a low-grade fever he makes himself hotter. Makes sense to me and I didn’t go to medical school! So the doc said it could be some kind of virus and to keep giving him tylenol/motrin if needed.

I’m convinced its NOT a virus and that it is just his molar trying to finish coming in. The complete front of the molar is threw and its a HUGE tooth! The back is slightly through but the entire mid-section still needs to come up. And that has gotta hurt. I mean just me thinking about it makes my gums hurt!!! Poor baby. He’s still feeling miserable and I just gave him another dose of motrin and now he’s sound asleep in his crib napping!

What sucks is this is only the first molar to come in…..that means we get to go through this a lot more! EEEEEEeeeeeeeek!

So we went to the Pillbox Pharmacy this afternoon to pick up Mikey medication and his nebulizer. We went in hopes of renting one for 2 weeks but that would come out to $30. For a month rental its $40….to buy one was only $59. The folks there insisted that we’d more than likely have to use this again so I went ahead and bit the bullet and bought it. What the hey right!!?!?! After Mikey’s 7pm bottle we gave him his first nebulizer treatment. At first he didn’t really care for the mask but he’s sit there licking the air as it came up. Such a silly boy! He did GREAT with his first treatment. Of course its too soon to see any kind of progress but I’m hopeful he’ll start feeling like himself really really soon.

So just as we thought Mikey was doing better he took a turn. Our last visit with his doc was on Monday when he was still running a fever. At that time she said if he’s still running one by Wednesday bring him back in. He was fine on Tuesday at home so on Wednesday we figured he’d be fine to go to daycare. And he acted fine the entire day. He started coughing that night but it wasn’t bad. It was right after his bottle too so we though some formula went down the wrong way. He’s done this before, he’s gonna live.

Well he went to daycare yesterday, Thursday, and he’s coughing a little worse but its not all day long just every once in awhile. What was weird is I got a paper saying a kid in his class has RSV, he’s not at daycare right now but they needed to let parents know because its highly contagious. I thought Mikey was in the clear because he had no fever and that usually goes hand in hand with RSV. Well last night before I took him to get ready for bed I noticed he was feeling hot so I took his temp and it was 100.9. Clearly a fever. NOT GOOD especially now that he is coughing. I was going to wait until the morning to make an appointment but he ended up waking up crying and coughing at 2:30am after I got him down I hopped on my computer and logged onto the pediatrician’s website and got us an appointment for 7:50am and then I went back to sleep.

We got to the pediatricians, he was still running a fever but it wasn’t as high as it was last night. She checked his ears and they were clear. His throat was red, and has apparently stayed that way since our visit on Monday. She had to check for strep which he did NOT enjoy at all. She listened to his lungs and could hear him wheezing. The conclusion Mikey has bronchiolitis. He need antibiotics and to do a nebulizer treatment twice a day for 2 weeks. But he will be fine soon enough.

While we were there she decided to just do his 9 month appointment since we would be going back in a week for that, no sense in coming yet again. The only thing they couldn’t do was his shot. She noticed him majorly tilting and asked me about torticollis. I told her what we’ve been doing and that we have an appointment with a specialist for next week. She checked his eyes to make sure that wasn’t contributing to it and it isn’t. She also mentioned that he has a lot of balance and strength and thinks he’ll be one of those kids that skips crawling all together and to not worry about it at all.

His 9 month stats are:

Weight: 21.13 lbs (75-90th percentile)
Height: 29″ (90th percentile)
Head Cm: 45cm (50-75th percentile)

We had all intentions of having a nice relaxing long weekend starting with taking off from work on Thursday but why would things go the way WE want them to!?!?!? Everything was great up until 4:30 on Thursday when Mikey woke up from his nap. At first he was his normal cheerful self. Full of smiles and laughs. Got to the living room and sat him on the floor with his toys while I got his bottle ready. Then all hell broke loose. He started wailing like he has never wailed before. This loud cry with a grunt. After 15 minutes of it I figured it had to be one of his teeth that are trying to come through so I gave him some tylenol and tried to feed him. It took an hour to give him his 6oz bottle.

After an hour of giving him tylenol he was still wailing and grunting. I immediately thought he must be super constipated and it must be hard for him to push it out. So before I called the pediatrician I took his temp and it was up to 101, but I figured it had to be from all of his crying making him hot. They told me to bring him in immediately. We waited and waited, like we always do over there! We are seriously considering switching doctors because of this crap. The doc looked him over, did a CBC, and a urine sample and nothing came up. He said it could be teething related or it could be the beginnings of a virus and to see how he does the next few days.

Well for the most part Friday was ok except he started getting super cranky that night. On Saturday he woke up feverish so I started giving him tylenol. He then turned super cranky again with his grunting cries so I would alternate with motrin. Nothing was working though. He couldn’t nap because he was so irritable, so because of that we decided to run our errands anyways. Of course our last stop was Publix and by then he was exhausted from not being able to sleep. So we put him in his stroller instead of in the cart and he cried and cried and cried. Eventually daddy had to take him out of the stroller and carry him around the store pushing the stroller. Poor baby would cry in his sleep from being so uncomfortable.

It was a challenge to get him to fall asleep that night but we finally got him down. Found out that around 1:30am he woke himself up and daddy was still awake so he picked him up and brought him to the living room and he passed out on his chest until daddy woke up around 4 and put him back in his crib. I had no idea this went on but at 5:30 Mikey woke up wailing so I ran to his room and he was HOT. I took his temp and it was up to 103 so I took off his pj’s and threw him in a bath to cool him off. Then dressed him in a onesie to go back to sleep. He managed to sleep until 8 and then we started the cranky/crying/grunting/fever thing all over on Sunday.

So here we are Monday morning. Mikey should be in daycare right now and I should be at the office. But nope we are both home. Why? Because he’s still running a fever, it was 100.4 again this morning. And he’s still super cranky and fussy. Thankfully I’m able to work from home so I’m doing that. I called up his doctor immediately at 8am to talk to the nurse and she recommended that we go back in so we have an appointment today at 1:30. Hopefully his doctor can give us a better insight as to what’s bother the poor little guy.