Teeth

Part of the reason Eddie has been more difficult lately is teething. His mouth seems to be bothering him, but he won't let us look at it, so it's hard to tell what's going on! The other day we finally got to peek inside, and saw half of a big molar has emerged on the upper right side of his mouth. Ouch! It's big! We can feel a molar pushing through on the upper left side, too, but I'm not sure if it's broken through yet.

Walking

Eddie was trundling along pushing his walker, which is full of blocks. He came across a board book on the floor (Clifford Barks!), and paused to look at it. Then he laboriously got down, removed a block from the walker, and whacked the book with the block a few times. This done, he pulled back up on the walker and continued on his way.

On the way back (he can't steer the walker much, so he goes until he runs into something, then gets on the other side and goes backwards), he retrieved the block and put it back in the walker's bin.

Antibiotics

Eddie's doctor thinks that he has an ear infection, which probably caused his fever this week.  So he prescribed antibiotics.  Of course, this was right after I was at a talk last weekend about the effects that bacteria in your intestines have on your mental state.  It turns out that the presence of certain bacteria in the guts of mice make them more exploratory, while other bacteria (which are present in breastfeeding baby mice) make the mice calmer.  Some bad bacteria (C. diff), if present in large numbers, are correlated with schizophrenia and other mental disorders.  And there's been stuff in the paper about the impact of gut flora on depression and obesity. Taking antibiotics kills off lots of the gut bacteria, sometimes leaving C. diff alone to take over (very bad) but, in any case, changing the makeup of the gut flora.  The upshot is that whenever you take antibiotics, it has long-term effects on mental health which are not understood, but probably bad.

So I said "Well, geez, Eddie's never had antibiotics, I guess we should keep it that way!" Alas.

He gets big doses by mouth, out of a huge syringe.  He never minded taking medicine before (it's generally sweet), but with all the medicine and temperature measurements and things we've been doing to him this week, he wanted nothing to do with it.  We had to hold his hands and get the syringe in his mouth while he twisted away and screamed and spat it out: a torment in the morning and at bedtime.  Then last night I tried putting it on a spoon, and he took it with no problem, and even seemed eager for more!  This has continued today.  It is a huge relief, since we have about a week more of this stuff to get through!

Walkin'

Picky eater

Eddie's become pickier lately: he used to eat anything, but now it's more of an ordeal. Often he has Cheerios on his tray, so he can control an aspect of the meal himself. When he doesn't want to take a spoonful that we're offering, he'll keep eating Cheerios to keep his mouth occupied. Today he was doing that while I was trying to feed him some yogurt, but got to the last Cheerio. Seeking to prolong his ploy, he split it into quarters and ate them one by one (chewing thoroughly!)

Potential escapee

Eddie understands that doorknobs are the key to opening doors, but hasn't quite figured out how yet. He likes to rattle the doorknob and yank on it, so that the door thumps in its frame. He'll do this at the front door, the bedroom door, or the bathroom door when they're closed - come to think of it, that's all the doors we have (except the nursery door, which doesn't really latch.) He's even locked and unlocked the little lock set in the door knob.

On Sunday, he started walking with a walker for the first time. He can pull up on it and trundle along all on his own, and he's very proud of himself! He's got good balance, too—even when the walker runs up on something and tilts over, he manages to extricate himself without falling.

As I sat in the bathroom with the knob rattling and the door under assault, it occurred to me that Eddie could figure out the "turn the doorknob" thing, and also begin walking without the walker, at pretty much any time, and then there's nothing to stop him from opening the door and wandering out around the neighborhood, while his parents remain unawares that he's even capable of such a thing. Until now, the vicinity of the front door has been a pretty good spot where he can amuse himself without getting into any trouble. But the next time we leave him to his own devices for a few minutes, he could turn out to be outside rascalling the neighbors out of treats!

Scare

Yesterday, Eddie woke up with a fever, but it didn't seem too bad. He had a pretty normal morning, playing, then fell asleep while nursing sometime after 11 and had a second morning nap (which he never does.) When he woke up around noon, he was cheerful. Then after about ten minutes, as he was crawling along, he dropped his head, gave a piteous cry, and stayed frozen there on all fours. I didn't realize anything was wrong until Anne picked him up.  His eyes were staring and he was completely unresponsive.

The phone was dead, and calling on our computer through Google Talk (which is how we do a lot of our phone calls) doesn't allow calling 911.  I tried calling our doctor, but the office was closed for Presidents' Day.  Luckily Anne had plugged in the phone and turned it on, so that by now I could call 911 with it. After that the firefighters were there within a couple of minutes (the fire department is only half a block away, but they brought the truck around anyway!), followed by EMTs in an ambulance a few minutes later. This whole time Eddie was unresponsive and jerking. It was very frightening, although the firefighters and EMTs assured us that it's not unusual and babies recover without ill effects.

After getting in the ambulance, Eddie began to cry inconsolably, which was at least a more familiar state, but wouldn't open his eyes or respond to us. He stayed the same way at the hospital for a couple of hours, calming down once or twice but not for long. He finally fell asleep around 2.  When he woke up around 3, he was much better, if grumpy. After that he was okay, and his fever (which peaked above 104°) went down to normal temperatures. We stayed at the hospital for another four hours, though, with a neurologist visit and some tests to rule out various possibilities. These were all negative and they concluded that it was just a "normal" febrile seizure.

We hadn't brought the phone, and Anne was more or less in her pajamas, and we hadn't gotten anything to eat; Eddie got by with some food which happened to be in his diaper bag. We didn't know how we'd get home, since we don't know anyone's phone numbers! Fortunately we have terrifically generous friends and one works at the hospital.  The operator connected us and he gave us a ride home after we were released.  Later, his wife brought us a lovely cooked meal with wine and flowers. Knowing such people makes these terrible things in life easier, and we're very grateful.