AM I ONE OF "THOSE" PARENT'S?

This is Daddy writing today. I just wanted to share with everyone our experience this past weekend with what we thought was a sick baby, and the lessons that we learned through it all.
Ok so AC played a trick on us this past weekend. Over the past couple of days Jenny Beth and I have been able to learn a lot about our little one at home. AC has been a little fussier than usual, and we have been trying different things to help her get comfortable. She hasn't really cried, you could just tell by her facial expressions and her little wimpers and pouty noises that she wanted something. So Jenny Beth and I, as all new parents do, tried ran ourselves raged in attempts to guess what is was that she wanted. She quickly reminded us that she is the boss by letting us know with a smile or a frown if our efforts would suffice. We did discover that she likes to be sitting up striaght when she is awake, tought. She doesn't care to lay down on her back too much. We have started putting her in her high chair and placing blankets around her to help her sit up straight, since she can't sit up on her own yet. This way we can have her in the same room as us and we can put her down so we can do things around the house; cook, clean, homework, anything.
In the evenings AC and I like to lay in the bed and I will bend my legs at the knee making a chair for her to sit there and play. That is Daddy-Baby bonding time. So as we were "bonding" on Sunday she seemed unhappy; unsettled. I tried making funny noises at her, playing pic-a-boo, telling her stories, and singing her songs. I even got her favorite toys to try and make her less iritated. Nothing worked.

I then noticed what I thought was her reaching at her left ear as she fussed. I thought that that meant her ear was bothering her. Maybe it was, but we will never truely know. Anyways I became concerned that she was getting sick. We checked her temperature with the several different thermometers that we have in our baby medical basket, why so many I haven't the slightest idea, but we proceeded to check her like a test subject. We no longer had the instructions on how to use the thermometers that we have so things got a little complicated. Whatever happened to those mercury thermometers that we had growning up that were simple...just read the number at the top of the grey line.
 With today's technology you would think it would be easy, but as we quickly learned they are not. She just layed there on her changing table as mom and I poked and proded trying to determine if our minature Rodden had a fever. So after several minutes of complications with the methods we used, and discussions of, "with this thermometer do we add a degree, or subtract a degree? was it in place long enough? I read in parent's magazine...blah, blah, blah;" we came to the conclusion that our baby girl had a slight fever. Each thermometer said something different, but we made an educated decision and decided to average them maybe not the most scientifical reasoning,but we are trying here. That came out to be around 99.8 degrees. I know it is only about a degree higher than normal body temperature, but with a baby a little bit matters. We then became concerned and immediatley administered chilren's tylenol, because our parent's said that they used that for use when we had fever. As all new parent's know the best source for knowledge on baby care is not the latest trendy magazine our the newest publication on what to expect, but the advice of our own mother. After all, haven't they been there a few times before, maybe they learned some tricks along the way that they could share with us. So we gave her tylenol and she drank her nightime bottle and went right to bed.

 She slept all night, but still concerned about my precious infant I had Jenny Beth take her to the doctor the next day. 25 dollars later and a visit with a new doctor, because Jenny Beth went on the wrong day, that is a story for another time, we learned that our beautiful AC is a very healthy and illness free 12 week old baby. She had no fever, I guess the doctor grade thermometers are better than ours, they use the one for the ear. She had no ear problems, no eye problems, no chest congestion either. Now I feel like one of those parents that you read about that take their baby to the doctor after every sneeze, every cough, and any sign that they may be uncomfortable.
So AC's gestures at her ear may not have been a sign that she was getting sick, but maybe just attempts at fighting off sleep or maybe even a little bit of gas. I am happy though that we took her took the doctor and found out that she was healthy and clear. I would much rather spend 25 dollars today to find out that the fussiness and the ear grabbing was just a confused translation by mommy and daddy for baby gas, than to find out in two weeks that her ear tugging and frown was the beginning of an ailment that led to something more severe. So maybe she played a trick on us, but we learned somethings about our new baby this week. She may not always be sick, but when she cries or when she tussles around, she isn't happy with her current position or atmosphere. As she grows she will gain other methods of communicating with her mother and myself, and we will get better at understanding and translating those loud outburst, arm swimgs, frowns, and leg kicks. This is an adventure and a journey and we have a long way to go...but if we take "baby" steps we will get there together.

C.