I was talking to a friend of mine who's 10th child is 14-months-old now. She described herself as a perpetual optimist with her example being, "What, teething keeps them up at night? I don't remember." She's so lovely that we laughed it up. I declared my sister, Annie, to be in the same memory loss camp.
About 2-3 weeks ago, Elizabeth had roseola. I didn't know it at the time. I excused the initial high fever as teething. Finally Heather diagnosed her and we confirmed it with the pediatrician later that day. Incredibly high fever (average of 104.9 degrees); fever breaks and a rash appears to spread all over her tiny body. My niece had the same thing, around 8 months, and Annie said, "Oh yea, I should've realized that it was roseola." Humph.
With the high fever, I was terrified that I was going to not watch her carefully enough, so I rationalized pulling her into bed with us. Bad move in hindsight. I should have just stayed in her bedroom and slept on the floor. But when they're sick, you put everything on hold and it doesn't matter. You do whatever you need to do to survive. Well, she got better health-wise, but lost her better sleep habits winding up with me doing whatever we all could to get some sleep and respite.
You have to undo what you do to get through it all. And so there were some tough nights there - we called in back up, Nana Slaugenhoup, to the rescue. And she gave me some much needed rest. She was wonderful - nearly throwing me out of the house. I got a haircut and joined a gym. I felt bright eyed once she was ready to leave. Sad to see her go, and Ellie misses her for sure!
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