you give me fever

I got sick last week. It was mostly the stuffy, runny nose and itchy, burning throat type of cold. I’ve been through about an entire box of Kleenex and an entire Chap Stick. I’ve been doing shots of DayQuil in the AM and NyQuil in the PM. I blame it on the folks at the office. They spread germs like wildfire.

Since I was sick the latter half of the week, I wasn’t surprised that Natasha got sick as well. What scared me and Beth however, was the fact that she developed a fever Sunday night. Before that, we didn’t know she was sick. Afterward, it was blatantly obvious that she was.

It all began yesterday evening. We let Natasha nap as long as possible. We were heading to Benihana to celebrate her Pappy’s birthday. When Beth woke her up, she noticed Natasha felt warm. Since she was covered with her blanket, we hoped she was just warm from it. When we did take her temperature, we accepted the truth. 100.8 = fever.

We gave her some Tylenol and went to dinner...we are horrible parent, no? She was fine. She ate what we brought her (we didn’t expect her to eat hibachi-style food) and she sat in her high chair through dinner like always. We went back to my in-laws for dessert and it became apparent that the drugs were wearing off.

We got home and got Natasha ready for bed. We also learned an important lesson – don’t give a toddler with a fever a bath. She ended up shivering even though the water was at a normal temperature for her. While Beth got her dressed, she only cried. We gave her another does of the Tylenol and she cuddled with Beth on the couch for about 20 minutes. Let me be clear to say that she is never a cuddle-bug.

She slept for the next 4-½ hours, but woke up around 2:30am screaming. We gave her another does of Tylenol and she almost immediately went back to sleep. However, around 4:00 she woke up screaming again. We gave her some white grape juice to drink and she downed it faster than you can say “fever”. When she finished it, she wanted to play with her farm toys. We thought she should try to sleep instead. She did.

I feel like crap about all of this since I am most likely the source of our daughter’s first major illness. It’s hard not to panic too, but everything I read on-line today regarding fevers in small children has me a bit reassured. As long as it doesn’t last too long, I know it’s her body’s way of fighting the germs. Still, I can’t help but feel guilty for making her ill.