Back in Brooklyn, Being a Cool Aunt, and Sick Again

I forgot to do a little bit of bragging in the last post.

My sister and I had promised to do a cookout with my niece while Calliope and I were in Vermont. See, Eliana's older sister is at sleepaway camp, and Eliana misses her terribly. But she's not quite ready to be away from home overnight. So we were going to do all the things, supposedly, that big sister Talia is doing at camp.

But then the sky turned grey and thunder boomed.

Poor Eliana, missing her sister and her father, looked desolate.

So I seized an opportunity, and said, "that's okay! Let's have a campout inside!"

I pulled a big quilt off a high shelf and helped Eliana push chairs together to make an indoor tent/fort. We arranged pillows artfully inside, and folded towels just so to make beds. My sister put the kibosh on building a fire and roasting hot dogs and marshmallows over an indoor fire -- she clearly lacks imagination unlike, say, moi -- and settled on dinner at the table but toaster-made s'mores eaten in the tent.

I felt like a pretty fun aunt. Calliope participated by sleeping soundly and not ruining the fun.

The next morning we ventured to Buttermilk Falls, also on Eliana's to do list, and Eliana got to swim in the frigid water with my sister while Calliope and I played in the mud on the sidelines.

Yesterday afternoon we drove back to Brooklyn, and my word, I am proud of my girl!

She has totally turned the corner on the car thing. Hooray! She plays quietly, and claps, and talks to herself, and "reads" books, and plays with things that I hand her. In a pinch, I can also pass a puff over the back of the car seat and tuck it neatly into her mouth. (I tried handing her a puff in her hand, or giving her a cup with a few puffs, or using a snack trap... all epic fails that resulted in puffs everywhere but in her mouth.) Oh, and if you're thinking, "puffs??? aren't you against that sort of thing?"

Well, yes, I am, except when they are really convenient. Then I'm not.

We survived the long drive and epic parking adventure and collapsed in bed... well, Calliope collapsed in bed while I decompressed at the computer and stayed up too late.

This morning she felt warm, so I took her temperature, not really expecting a fever because she seemed so happy and playful. But it was 100.4 in her armpit, a degree lower than her true temperature. Hmm.

She felt downright hot after a two and a half hour nap. I decided to do a rectal temp... 103.2.

Darn.

So off to the doctor we went. By then the Motrin had kicked in and she was her normal cheerful, smiling, waving self. Apart from occasional mouth breathing as a remnant of her last cold, she's been totally without symptoms, so the doctor wanted to rule out a urinary tract infection. The nurse cleaned Calliope's "area" with Betadine then carefully taped a collection bag to her labia. Calliope most definitely did not approve of this project. Naturally she would not pee on command. We waited in the exam room for about an hour until she finally peed, just a tiny bit.

There wasn't enough there to do a dipstick so the nurse sent a urineanalysis to the lab. Results will be back tomorrow. I'm not too worried but I am discouraged that my girl is sick again.

Also, for the record, she still hasn't gained weight. Seventeen pounds, four ounces at 11.5 months old. This was the fourth doctor in the practice I saw today, who hadn't seen her since her newborn visit in the hospital, and he didn't even glance at her weight.

Oh well. She has her ONE YEAR well baby visit in two and a half weeks. We can discuss it then.

I'm just hoping that this fever passes quickly and we can leave town again soon.

Real estate drama continues.