Not every Milestone is Awesome

Over the past 6 and 1/2 months this blog and my Facebook page have become a virtual baby book of the big and small milestones of John Brooks thus far. Now I am well aware that I probably post too many pictures of my child and that nobody cares as much as I do that he ate his first watermelon or wore his cute sunhat but I am a mama who is in love with her baby and I think that everything he has done so far is precious and wonderful and I want to chronicle and share his moments because he’s my baby and he’s just so cute! Plus when the biographers who write his Presidential memoirs come calling I want to be able to give them a wealth of material from “the early years” and by that time its looking like I am going to have Alzheimer's and will barely remember his name let alone what he wore home from the hospital. :)

I say all of that to say this, some milestones are not as fun to record and I was hoping to make it through…oh 18 years…without having to record this particular accomplishment but alas after 6 and 1/2 months my baby contracted his first viral infection. :( The poor buddy started looking puny on Monday morning when he was not interested in his banana oatmeal or his bottle. By 2 pm on Monday the fever and the diarrhea (I can’t believe I just typed that word on my blog but in the interest of full disclosure…) had kicked in and there was no doubt from his lethargic state that my baby was s-i-c-k. I took him to the doctor on Tuesday where they preformed enough tests to officially make him afraid to EVER sit on an examining table again and came up with the diagnosis that “Its a viral infection and it just has to work its way out of his system”. Let me tell you, it stinks having to watch your baby be sick and knowing there is nothing you can give him that is going to make him better beyond an alternation of Children’s Tylenol and Infant Advil for his fever.

After a couple of days of 103-104 fevers, lack of fluids, and one more trip to the doctor it appears that my little guy’s body had fought off that nasty bug and he is on the mend (Thank you Lord!) Things that we have learned from this experience include – John Brooks likes drinking water out of big people cups (this does not bode well for the future of my furniture), bath time is the best cure for febral lethargy, and Ben Colson does not handle the stress of his baby being sick very well (He was sooo mad at the doctor’s last night – he just knew that there was some kind of medicine that they could’ve given him that they were holding back) :). I’ve always been pretty open to allowing people to hold and talk to John Brooks because I believe that more people/situations we expose him to the more sociable he will be and I want to teach him not to be afraid to speak to adults BUT… I learned that it is actually important to keep the baby sheltered from alot of people/hands – I am not sure how/where John Brooks picked up this little beauty but I am going to be a lot more strict/careful about who holds my baby in the future – so I am apologizing in advance if I tell you to get out of his face. :) I want to try and prevent a rerun of this same episode so that I can get back to taking pictures of important things – like the first time he plays with a ball.