I Heart Fever

Let me start off by saying that I would never wish a fever on Z, but I am not above enjoying the perks when she does. Something about a fever over 101 just burns all of the ornery right out of her. You see, Z only has two settings: 1. So sweet/smart/funny it makes my heart hurt; or 2. Have to restrain myself to keep from going to jail. A bit of fever completely removes the second setting.

I grew up in a family where you practically had to be holding your severed arm in your remaining hand in order to go to the doctor (which probably wasn't a bad thing given the quality of military dependent care). Also, when I was a very new parent, I read an article that really resonated with me about the benefits of letting your kid have a fever instead of pouncing on them with a bottle of Children's Tylenol. All of this is to say that I have a pretty high fever tolerance in my kids. (Now that time when Q's temp went up to 106? That was panic inducing.)

So here's the up side: Z is all cuddly and sweet; if we happen to make eye contact, she tells me that she loves me; she's too lethargic to bug Q; and her usually iron will softens to somewhere near manageable. The down side is that this is the third relatively high fever she has had since June when she was laid low by a double ear infection while we were at a college reunion down in Austin. This picture was taken in a house that contained 11 other children. Poor baby.

Because Z is allergic to all the good antibiotics for ear infections, the fluid in her ears never cleared up entirely and the infection has come back once. Could this be those nasty bacteria rearing their germy heads again? Are there tubes in her future? If so, at least swimming season is past! Or is it a UTI? She's complaining of pain in her lower abdomen, but it could just mean she needs to visit the restroom. (She is currently involved in some personal contest to see how long she can hold it. Sigh. I can't force her to pee. But that's a topic for another day!) Probably it is just a virus she picked up from one of her germy friends at preschool. What ever it is, I am going to try to just relax and enjoy the snuggles.

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FROG UPDATE: Apparently, weather influenced by hurricanes puts frogs in the mood for love. In with all the other flotsam and jetsam blown into our pool were no fewer than four clumps of eggs. I toyed with letting nature take its course (aka: letting the pool sweeper suck them up), but in the end was too softhearted and transported them to the pond.

When I was out walking the other morning, I encountered another walker from around my neighborhood. She stopped me and said, "Aren't you the one that has been putting something in the pond?" She was very curious about me and had about decided that I was there testing the water. She was incredulous when she found out about my amphibian mission of mercy.

BIG LOVE UPDATE: Literally as soon as I finished posting about how gooey my heart was over my hubs reading to Z at nap time, a poop storm erupted. T, having never actually done the nap time ritual, thought Z was trying to delay going to sleep by asking to cuddle. Z, who has cuddle time before every time she goes to sleep, was understandably upset. There was yelling and crying. Too bad. It was almost perfect.