What You Cannot Change, You Must Endure

So the last 72 hours have been, by far, the worst of my tenure as a parent. And by worst, I mean hardest to endure. I have been completely mentally and physically exhausted, while at the same time had to sit and watch my child cry from horrible pain and there be absolutely nothing I can do to help her but hold her and pat her head.

Sunday night at about midnight, the screaming began, accompanied by a monster high fever. Two hours earlier, she'd been fine. Or so we thought. She'd been a little bipolar during the day, alternately happy and tantrumesque.

She did not stop crying until about 1pm on Monday. I had taken Monday off as it was. I'd planned on sleeping late, working out, painting the trim and baseboards and generally goofing off. Twas not to be. Instead, Steph and I took turns trying to catch naps.

In our house, partly because of the wood floors and partly because it was built in 1955 and never meant to be soundproof, noises carry. And when that noise is a screaming baby, well, if you want to sleep, you'd better take a sleeping bag to the car in the driveway.

We took her to the doc on Monday. Doc didn't have much to say, really, apart from ruling out the swine flu with a flu test. She actually sent us to the hospital for some blood work. As it turned out, Kaia was in fact fighting off some kind of virus, though the doc didn't know which one. She told us that if Kaia had not improved by Tuesday morning to come back in.

Kaia did not improve. In fact, Kaia got worse. Her temp in the short hours of Tuesday peaked at 103.6 (take an underarm thermometer measurement and add approximately a degree for the actual temp of the baby; no, we haven't ever been able to make ourselves stick the thermometer up the baby's butt for a more accurate reading).

Babies with temps that high, at least our baby, are miserable. And again with the all night screaming. By Tuesday morning, we were half mad, and when the nurse said we couldn't get in to see the doc until 11:15, I think we both thought about joining Kaia in her screaming.

When we finally did get to the doc, we were at least rewarded for our time; she gave us a diagnosis: gingivostomatitis. Basically, giant sores all over the inside of Kaia's mouth. Picture, if you will, a whole mouth full of canker sores, extending down onto your tonsils. Now at least we understood why Kaia was screaming, clawing at her mouth and tongue and drooling like a water faucet.

The doc gave us prescripts for an anti-viral and Tylenol w/Codeine.

So last night, at least, we got some sleep, and so did she. Today, however, she seemed worse than ever. She was really lethargic. She wouldn't drink, wouldn't eat. She wouldn't talk or smile. Wouldn't walk. All she did was cling to me or nap, and then when Steph got home from work, cling to her and nap.

In the midst of all this, we worked our way through about 28 episodes of Dora (Swiper, no swiping!). I finally signed up for Netflix in anticpation of something that's happening later this month, and discovered in the bowels of the "watch instantly" library that there were two seaons of Dora available, so I queued them both up. By the way, Netflix through the Xbox is the bomb. I may get rid of cable.

Anyway, her fever didn't get too high (not higher than 100 today), so I didn't dose her with anything after 8am. She took another nap late in the afternoon, and then woke up right before Steph ran to the store this evening. While Steph was gone, she drank pretty much a whole sippy cup of milk and a bunch of Gatorade (for those not yet parents, when kids get dehydrated, don't buy them Pediasure; it tastes like ass and they won't drink it -- Gatorade is where its at). She seemed to sort of pep up. She said "Dorda" when Dora came on the screen and did her "Swiper, No Swiping!" arm motion (steph thinks this is an offshoot of "the wipers on the bus go swish, swish, swish...").

So we think we turned the corner.

Right before bed, we dosed her with the Tylenol cocktail. Btw, getting medicine in the kid probably violates the Geneva Convention. She acts like she's getting waterboarded, and has a whole kata of escape moves she puts on us while screaming and crying.

We win, for now, but it's war and it's clear to me these are but skirmishes in an ongoing offensive.

Steph took her after that and they read some Dora books (kid's already developing brand loyalty), and then I thought she'd passed out. I was sitting in the living room reading Guillermo Del Toro and Chuck Hogan's The Strain when I get this text from Steph (yes, we text back and forth in the same house): bring puter.

So I took her laptop to her, we talked for a minute, then Kaia sprang up from her slumber, crawled across the bed and latched onto me. I laid down with her for a few, and then her head popped up, she got this silly grin on her face, then raced over and pounced on Steph.

She continued doing this, a sort of manic grin on her face the whole time, for a good 20 minutes. We realized she was high as a kite. At one point, sitting in between us, she rotated her head in a circle about four times, then crawled over and laid on Steph's face.

Hilarious.

I finally snuck out of the room after she lept off of me and onto Steph with a sort of feral shriek. I assume they're sleeping now. There have been no further communications from the bedroom. That could mean, however, that Kaia successfully suffocated my wife and is lying in wait...