Teething has reared its ugly head, characterized by an unusually cranky little girl, random crying and fussing, lots of chewing on fingers, middle-of-the-night party fests (my favorite), burning hot head with no recordable "fever", runny nose, etc., etc., etc.
Then, last night, the poor thing was the first of our children to be dropped on her head, compliments of her oldest brother. Luckily, he was sitting on the low couch when she flipped out of his hands, but as PJ and I didn't see it happen, and thus couldn't discern what part of her head hit the floor first, or just how hard she fell, we called the advice line for our insurance. They wanted us to take her to the ER, but I then remembered I could call the pediatrician's office and talk to the on-call ped (DUH!), who preferred to have us watch her for concussion, but deduced that she was probably all right.
Fast forward to 1:00 am, when we have to wake her for her 4-hour concussion check. She wakes up a little and is responsive - yay! 4:30 am, I wake to nurse her and find her scorching hot. After she nurses, I get the thermometer to find out for sure, and she's running around 101. So I lay her back down with dad and run to the computer - I can't remember what kind of temp is dangerous in a baby her age. I just find out that she's mostly past the danger-age for that kind of temp, when she starts screaming. I run back to the bedroom where she's crying hysterically. I try to calm her with little success, then she throws up on me, and I literally felt her fever break. She went from boiling hot to just kind of warm in about 5 seconds. She calmed down and fell asleep 1 minute later, with me still propping her up, staring, and waiting for her head to spin around or something. I, of course, didn't get to sleep for another hour or so, just laying next to her, waiting for something else horrific to happen. But today she's mostly fine, running a temp from high 98s to low 100s, so she must just be fighting a bug.
Man, this baby stuff is exhausting.
You know, it really shouldn't have worked. 2 teenagers, meeting in a dark, smoky, disreputable dance club 16 1/2 years ago, where one-night hook-ups were the expectation. Nothing long-term should have come of such a night. It should likely have ended as just a brief high school romance. From 2 different backgrounds, living in 2 different cities. Nothing obvious to so closely bond us. Yet time passed, and together we stayed. Through the remaining years of high school. Through my senior prom, the night we became "officially" engaged - much to some family members' extreme concern. In fact, moments before I walked down that aisle, I was advised by a family member that, "It's not too late. If you're not totally sure, you can back out now." But I didn't, and here we are, living our own happily ever after.
