Four

Joseph now has four beautiful teeth! I guess I think that they are beautiful because it was such a labor of love for them to arrive!

Teething is hard work!

Being a baby is hard work, whoever said it must be easy is wrong! Well, maybe it is just hard for Joseph because his Mom can be a tad clueless at 1am, 3 am, & 6am!!

Sleep was hard to come for the last week because Joseph has not only been cutting his two top teeth at one time, but there are two more on top swelling his poor gums, in addition to being sick. I had a long post I was writing five days ago, but then I noticed he was still battling some health issues. We made countless phone calls to the clinic and finally I decided to override the nurse's ideas and just schedule an appointment for that day with our pediatrician. He had previously seen a doctor on the Saturday (one week ago) but on Tuesday he was still feeling rotten and not wanting to drink and I could barely get enough solids in him for nutritional needs. Over the weekend his fever rose to 103 and it was scary! I was told on that Saturday that he just had a viral infection that would just have to run its course. Well it did not run fast and he got worse before he got better. The on-call doctor said Joseph had a red throat but did nothing in the way of telling me how to care for it except to give him Tylenol/Motrin alternately to keep the fever down. He got his fever pricked that day but nothing abnormal showed up but just a viral infection.

Fast forward to Tuesday, we see our very competent, compassionate doctor and she redoes the blood count and it shows that his white blood count is actually improving from three days before and I figured this because I felt like we were over the hump with the high fevers but he just wasn't well still. She could tell he was miserable and she did swabbed his throat to rule out strep and that was negative and since his throat was so sore, she told us to make him some medication to help relieve the soreness so that he could finally eat/drink with out pain.

She was right on the mark. She led us on the right path. Now, I have to admit when she gave me that handwritten list of meds to buy at the pharmacy and the instructions to go home, compound it myself and give it to him every 4-6 hours along with the normal double dose of Tylenol/Motrin I was NERVOUS to over medicate him! We only did have of the Tylenol/Motrin and did her recipe of meds and it worked like a charm! My faith in his pediatrician was cemented!! The "miracle mouthwash" with equal parts Children's Tylenol, Children's Benedryl, and Maalox worked quick and easy! My baby ate later and ate ALOT! He was so hungry and thirsty.

I am struggling with learning how to curve temper tantrums the past few days though, I feel like I coddled him so much earlier in the week and while he is still recovering he wants to behave like a little monster. I think it mainly is change in routine, less sleep, etc. But I really think I just spoiled him too much. The last two days have managed to make me feel like a total failure in directing my child's behavior AND he is only still 10 months old! I have got to get a handle on this NOW! For his sake and my own. We are trying so hard to keep him in his crib at night too and that is feeling impossible. Somehow, God will give me the wisdom I need to parent Joseph well.