Bumps, bruises, and fevers

Bumps and bruises first - Kate has approached walking with the same attitude that she approached crawling ... go faster than you can so you end up falling a lot. She's usually a good sport about just getting right back up and plowing ahead, but she's also had quite a few nasty falls where she's toppled into furniture, doors, toys, people, etc. Needless to say, her face and other parts of her body, too, I guess, have a handful of scrapes, scratches, and bruises. Still, she's pretty tough.

Before I go through the fever saga, a few other words about Kate. This kid has quite a vocabulary already, even if most people can't understand it yet. Her favorite "word" is "go ah", which means "go out". Many times a day, often first thing in the morning, she toddles over to a door or window and points outside repeating "go ah!" over and over again. She's also got "words" for ball, balloon (bawoo), dog (woof), pacifier (pa), blanket (ba), and washing up after a meal (wah, while "washing" her hands).

Anna's (usually) such a great teacher for her. For example, the other morning Kate pointed at the toaster and said "pah" (pop?). Anna responded with "That's right, Kate. That's a toaster ... t-oast-er (clearly and slowly). We put bread in it and the toaster says pop when it's ready." Do we have a teacher in our midst?

Okay ... now the fevers ...

Kate had a mild fever (101-102) last Monday and Tuesday. She slept a lot, was pretty crabby, and had a reduced appetite those days, too. We set up a doctor's appointment for Wednesday, but by about 9 on Wednesday morning she was back to her normal self with no signs of a fever so we cancelled the appointment. Then we had about 36-48 hours of fever free time. Then Anna's started.

Thursday evening she felt a little warm, but we'd been running around outside for awhile so we thought she was just a little heated up from that. Friday morning she was okay until she asked to take a nap at 11:30, even without eating lunch. Hmmm ... She woke up with a 102 fever. We figured she'd just gotten whatever Kate did. She slept a lot on Friday night and Saturday during the day, with the same ups and downs that Kate had. She and Matt stayed home from church on Sunday (while Kate and I went to the early service), then she and I played a couple of games of Memory before she seemd to be pretty flushed again. I took her temperature and it was over 105 ... yikes! So we headed in to Urgent Care and spent about 2.5 hours there. In fact, we were there during the time we usually have lunch and start naps, so Anna was particularly hungry and tired. She actually fell asleep on the way home and, of course, woke up when we got home and then didn't take a real nap yesterday. Poor kid.

After all of the work and effort to get Anna to urinate in a collection container, the urinalysis was inconclusive about a bladder infection and, while one of her ears was slightly more red than the other, the doctor said that was also inconclusive about an ear infection. He figured she had some kind of bacterial infection to cause that high of a fever, and thought it was probably either her ears or her bladder. So Anna is currently taking the first round of antibiotics she's ever been prescribed and seems to be on the mend. No fever this morning ... more pleasant attitude ... but still tired, understandably.

Hopefully this week will have fewer bumps, bruises, and fevers! We're all a little sick and tired of being sick and tired (and we're tired of being unable to have contact with the rest of the world). At least the weather has cooperated so we've been able to spent lots of our home time outside of the house.