January 7, 2012 - 7 months old

Elliott turned 7 months old today, and I can honestly say today has been the most trying day for me as a parent so far. Let me back track a little to yesterday. Jeff was off duty, and he took Elliott to Dr. Reis' office for his 2nd round of his flu shot and also to have Dr. Reis check out a rash that had formed around his mouth. I was pretty sure it was from all of the slobbering he's been doing lately, (darn teeth!) but figured it couldn't hurt to have it looked at. Dr. Reis confirmed the rash was most likely from the saliva and told Jeff a cream to pick up to put on it.

Last night, before his bath, I thought Elliott felt kinda warm, so we took his temperature. He had a slight fever which we figured was a reaction to his shot. He woke up more times in the middle of the night than he has in a long time. Jeff and I took turns going in trying to sooth him back to sleep and I noticed on one of my turns around 3:30 am that he still felt warm.

Jeff is on duty today, and this morning when his alarm went off at 6, Elliott was awake, so I went in to feed him. He wasn't really interested in eating or going back to sleep for that matter. He just kept kind of whining, not really crying. I put him in bed with me thinking he would go back to sleep. Two hours later he was still fussing so I called Jeff and asked if Dr. Reis happened to look at his ears yesterday. I couldn't figure out what was going on with him and suspected an ear infection. Jeff said he had looked at his ears and they were fine. When 9 rolled around and he still wouldn't eat I called the Dr. Reis' office and made an appointment.

By 10:30 (the time of our appointment) he still hadn't really eaten much and hadn't slept at all. He normally takes at least an hour morning nap. He was a train wreck while we were waiting in the room for Dr. Reis to come in. As soon as he walked in the door he said "wow, he didn't look like that yesterday!" He looked so pitiful, watery eyes, snot running out of his nose, red cheeks... He looked him over and determined he has an ear infection in his right ear. He called in an amoxicilan prescription and we were on our way home.

All day long he just whined and looked so sad. It broke my heart to see him so miserable and know that there wasn't anything I could do to make him feel better. I tried holding him for his nap but he couldn't sleep. He would fall asleep and wake up 10 minutes later because he couldn't breathe. We spent a lot of time just snuggling on the couch. It's 8:00 now and he's asleep in his bed, and I'm hoping he can get some rest and let the antibiotic start working.


Each month on the 7th I take a picture for his baby book. Even though he's sick he was a trooper and posed for his 7 month picture.

So big!

As you can see, he's not quite himself today.