Sick Day

Ugh, Will is sick. It all started with his very first temper tantrum at the grocery store on Monday night.

Now, I am not saying that Will is a docile lamb (far from it), and I know the tantrums of toddlerhood are waiting just around the bend. However, for his current developmental place and personality, this was completely out of character for him. He usually loves the grocery store. I don't go in empty handed. He gets graham crackers, water, toys, and books for his time in the cart, but he is usually so busy watching everything and flirting with strangers that I don't even have a need for my stash of tricks. Well, Monday night, he did not love the store. He did not want to flirt, he did not want to point at things and ask, "Wha wha?" (Loosely translated, we believe he is asking, "What's that?" as he will keep pointing and saying it until we tell him the name of the object in question. Then, he moves on to pointing at something else and asking again. Somtimes, he will even repeat the name of whatever it is.) He did not want his graham crackers, he did not want his toys. He did want his water cup, but only for throwing on the ground and then screaming in fury. I realized halfway through my grocery list that this was not gonna be a good trip and grabbed the last of what I absolutely needed and headed to the checkout. Will then proceeded to scream at the top of his lungs, throwing his cup, trying to press the buttons on the credit card machine, pushing my hands away when I tried to comfort him, and just generally being an absolute turkey. Having never faced this particular challenge with him, I really didn't know what to do. I was embarassed and didn't feel very well equipped to handle the situation. This was so out of character for my normally cheerful little guy, that I think I was more alarmed than anything else.

When we got home, I tried to feed him dinner, and he wanted none of it. Now I knew something was up. Tantrums might be one thing, but not eating? I think Will not eating is a sign of the apocolypse.

I did check his temperature before bed that night, and it was 99.0. Higher than his usual body temperature, but not a true fever by medical definition. He slept relatively well that night, but woke up at 5:30 yesterday morning, which is also very unusual. The minute M handed him to me for his morning nurse, I knew we were in for a day. His little body was raging with heat. I nursed him and then took his temperature, which was 102.6. Folllowing the advice of our pediatrician, I started him on a dose of Tylenol. His temperature remained in the 102 - 103 range all day yesterday, despite two tepid baths and the Tylenol. He wanted nothing to do with food, although I offered him lots of pedialyte and he was good about drinking that. It was almost 90 degrees here yesterday and my biggest fear was dehydration. He was extremely clingy and cried huge tears if I put him down, except if I put him down in his crib, where he still took two very long naps yesterday.

His temperature his still 100.8 today. He did have one extremely loose bowel movement yesterday, but only one. Other than the temperature and the lack of appetite, he has no other noticeable symptoms. I did call our pediatrician's office and they said to continue with the Tylenol and bring him in if he has a fever after three days. I would feel a bit better if he had some other symptoms, such as a runny nose or cough. This random fever is a bit unsettling, but I am hoping that it is gone soon and I have my normal, cheery boy back.