Back to S.Y.T.Y.C.D. for the Sake of My Nerves

So, I'm watching "So You Think You Can Dance" right now - - I missed the last 4 weeks of shows, um, cuz I don't really watch TV. But tonight, well, tonight I'm on alert, trying to remain cool, calm, and collected, and I need some 'veg-out-n-don't-think-about-it-too-much' time: My baby sweet potato girlie is sick, sick, sick, again, and this time, if she feels how she looks right now, oh my goodness, my poor baby is so sick.

As I was leaving work to go pick her up, all excited about carrying her out to the car due to her new carseat, her preschool called me to ask if I was on my way over, because she'd been taken to the infirmary. She'd woken up from a loooong nap --an hour and 15 minutes, which NEVER happens at daycare-- and they said her little face was puffy and her right eye was red and nearly swollen shut, and she was just crying, crying, crying, and with or without the puffiness and swollen eye, she's not known to cry much there.

When I arrived to her school, I went first to her group's room to collect her things and to sign out this and that, and I talked with some of the ladies who watch her to hear what they had to share about my baby girl's day. They all expressed their concern that she had had such a hard time, that she looked so sick, and that it had happened so quickly, and then? Then the real worry began to sink into my gut as I read the worry on their faces.

As I walked from one building to the other, I tried to keep my nerves and my heart in check and to not let my growing worry run out of control. As I entered the building where the infirmary is, I could immediately see my lil' sicky babe through its windows before I even had to ask where she was, and my baby girlie saw me as well, and holy cow, the crying hit a new high the moment she saw me through the glass!! The school's program director actually came out to talk to me and she met me just as I set my things down on a table outside the infirmary, but honestly, I have NO IDEA what she was saying to me, as I passed her by, eyes and ears for my baby only in that moment, and as I made it into the room where the head nurse was trying to hold her, my darling sweet pea, with her lil' right eye swollen 1/2 shut, smiled a pained and crooked smile, and the crying turned off like a switch had flipped as I reached for her, and she reached for me, and then my heart exploded.

The director and head nurse gave me the relevant details I'd need for our pediatrician, but foremost, I was preoccupied, alarmed to see how sick my wee one looked and to see her so exhausted.

Placing her inside my car and into her new carseat, after having carried her out of her school in my arms with her lil' wet, tear streaked cheekies brushing against my own as she whimpered and sighed, she barely kept her little eyes open, yet she realized something was new and different, and as she opened her peepers to see what was up. She recognized she was sitting in something she'd never seen before and she looked around, from side to side, and as her lil' wet and puffy fingertips reached out and gingerly touched the corduroy upholstery and the harness straps, she closed her swollen eyes, fingers still exploring her new backseat throne, and she leaned her little head into a side-impact cushion, opening her eyes again to look at those as well, then closing them again, whimpering some more as I began fastening her in.

Once we were home, she was too sleepy to keep her poor eyes open as she ate, and only half her usual dinner portions at that. A couple times she'd kinda squint at me, her left eye half-closed to match her right, and I realized she just had to go to bed and sooner than I'd originally thought. As I turned from her highchair to grab a bottle from the freezer to be thawed in our bottle warmer (thank you, Christina!), she began to cry a kind of slow-motion cry, too tired to cry, but with big fat tears rolling down her red, chubby cheeks, dripping off her trembling chinny-chopper. As I unbuckled and lifted her from her highchair, up into my arms, she closed her eyes again, and with her bottom lip out in a full pout, she buried her face into my neck, and patiently waited for her bottle to thaw, taking a couple peeks here and there to watch the steam rise.

We then headed upstairs for a modifying bath time. For a first, I simply laid her down in a warm bathtub filled very shallow water, rather than place her sitting up in her usual blow-up baby tubby which sets down inside the bathtub. With her head supported by a hand of mine behind her neck, she laid there in the warm water with her eyes closed, quietly humming, letting her little arms and legs float, all relaxed. And I was in awe with her.

I couldn't believe --and still can't-- how sick she looks. Her whole face appears to be puffy, her cheeks and chin are chapped, and her nose is running like a faucet, and we're certain she has a nasty eye infection. She hadn't had a fever earlier, but the last time we checked around 7pm, she had a low grade temp of 99.1. And so, as I'd said when I first began this rambling post, I'm on the alert tonight. I did talk with her pediatrician's office on our way home, and we do have an 8am appointment set for the morning. Needless to say, we'll be home from work tomorrow and she won't be able to return to daycare until she's been fever free and on antibiotics for 24 hrs' time. For now, let's just hope she doesn't get any worse tonight!