Our first week in December

Well, as you guys saw on a post last week, Lincoln was running a high fever between 102-104 F for about 3 days. He also had a lack of appetite, crankiness, sleepiness, and on Saturday a pretty weird rash appeared quickly throughout the day all over his torso, neck, and face. After some internet research, and asking some other mom's, it turns out that he had HHV-6, also known as Roseola, the human herpes virus - 6.

Sounds scary right? Well, I guess it is one of the most common viral infections in young children. 95% of adults have immunity, and almost all of the illness is gotten before the age of 4 years, with it being most common between the ages of 7mo-13mo. Once you get sick once you are immune. Well, Lincoln is 16 months, but well under 4 years of age, and all of the symptoms fit perfectly, so that is what he had.

As it is a human herpes virus, there is unfortunately some risk of injury to baby June if I am not already immune, but it is very likely that I am immune already. And if I am not, there is really nothing anyone can do, except hope for the best.

*************************************************************

I have finished my Christmas shopping, and we have a very nice stack of presents going under our tree. I am going to have to ship these off to Oregon pretty soon (tomorrow probably), so we won't get to enjoy looking at them until we see them again in Salem under my family's tree! Andy has not finished his shopping, and I think he is going to do most of it in Salem on Christmas Eve. Oh boy! Lincoln is not getting any presents on Christmas from us. He was already given his presents from us here. He seems to LOVE them, especially the musical table! He plays with it all of the time! He still doesn't really get Christmas, so we figured it would be best to just do it early here, so we wouldn't have to ship that large box up and then back down here.

Lincoln and I leave here on the 17th, and I am already starting to get nervous about all the details I need to remember and things we can't forget, when traveling for 2-3 weeks with a little one. Plus, I will need to buy a whole bunch of stuff once we get there...like a winter coat for Lincoln, diapers, wipes, his favorite foods, etc... My parents were nice enough to buy a Pack n' Play and a portable high chair for Lincoln to use while up there, as well as a carseat for June that we will use while visiting, and then bring back with us to Tucson. So the big baby needs for our stay are taken care of, so to speak, thanks Mon & Dad!

************************************************************

Last Monday we went to see the nutritionist based on the referral we got from our Pediatritian. I hadn't been keeping a food log, because our appointment was supposed to be in February, but we got in on a last minute cancellation. I had been sort of keeping track in my head though, and I estimated that he was getting about 700-900 calories/day. Based on some research I did, 900 calories is what it said on the internet was needed for a 1-2 year old, and I knew we were getting close to that amount. Well, we learned that that is true for the average 1-2 year old, but since Lincoln is so large for his age, the nutritionist calculated that he needs 1340 cal/day. She said that eating 700 cal/day is equivalent to a 21 lb baby, so that is why he has been losing weight. She said that since he doesn't have a large appetite due to his meds, that we are going to have to increase and hide calories in the stuff he does eat. So, for example, instead of a 4oz bottle of whole milk at 75 calories, we do 2oz of whole milk and 2oz of half & half for a total of 118 calories. All of these little things add up, and we have been able to increase his caloric intake to over 1000 since we started tracking it last Monday. We have yet to reach the magic 1340 calories in a give day, but we have gotten within a few hundred calories 3 days last week! I am proud of our success so far, but it takes a lot of work and determination to get that much food in him, and a lot of patience on Lincoln's part to have me following him around shoving bites of food into his mouth while he plays. I really hope his appetite picks up, or his eating efficiency increases with all of these new teeth popping in, because I am not certan how long we can keep up this food focus intensity.