first trip to the emergency room

since i'm blogging about it, violet is obviously fine, but it's been a long week. come to think of it, last week was pretty rough too because we kept getting reports from daycare that violet "just wasn't herself," but she didn't have any symptoms.

finally she developed a fever of just over 100 on thursday night, so i kept her home on friday. by bedtime, the fever was at 102, and the tylenol didn't seem to be helping. she was burning up in the night, restless, moaning, her sweaty little body just clinging to me, so we took her temp at midnight and panicked. it was 105.

i'd never been to an emergency room, so this is probably stating the obvious, but what a freak show that is in the middle of the night. the fluorescent lights did not help to endear the cast of characters in that waiting room. i tried to keep violet asleep in the corner, in a shadow by a pay phone, but the loud hum of the vending machines and the episode of south park blaring from the only television didn't do much for my cause. finally we were admitted to a room of our own, adjacent to that of a poor child who was repeatedly vomiting. our woes were nothing compared to the others that we heard along the hallway.

violet was diagnosed with bronchitis and an ear infection after a pneumonia rule-out, and we were sent home with a prescription for antibiotics and instructions for a rotating regimen of tylenol and motrin. but even with tons of drugs in her, violet's fever was still over 104 when we were discharged. as i waved to the nurses down the corridor, they waved back with funny smiles on their faces. i looked over my other shoulder to find that we were standing next to a thug who was bleeding profusely from the face. "come on, we'll stitch you up," a nurse said to him, and he lumbered down the hall like this was his average friday night.

back at home, violet slept until 10:30am.



her fever slowly improved over the course of the weekend, but on sunday night, she started breaking out in a rash. long story short, her regular pediatrician diagnosed her with roseola and took her off the antibiotics, saying she had neither bronchitis nor an ear infection. where was alex karev when i needed him?





we had some birthdays in our house. first mine, then kevin's, and kevin shares the same birthday as my mom, so we celebrated hers too.









there were a lot of playtime options in the stacks of wrapping paper and gifts, but as you can see, it's the nordstrom half yearly sale bag that won over the little debutante. it's so funny to think about whether or not she'll end up a girly girl. i was decidedly not as a kid. i did not like dolls (i preferred to play veterinarian to my stuffed animals). i did not like to play "house" or "school" (i preferred "orphanage" and "lost at sea"). somewhat counterintuitively i was also not a tomboy, not athletically inclined, and not a daredevil (see: never been to an ER). we can already tell that violet's going to be a climber. she's more active than any baby we've ever seen. and when i pulled out a huge stack of stuffed toys from her closet yesterday, she grabbed the one and only baby doll - this cheap lump of plastic that i'd obtained for our hospital infant care class. yeah, violet loves it. apparently my daughter and i are already opposites (see: loves meatballs).

but even though i've never been the girliest, "girls trips" have always been a tradition in my family (don't feel bad for my dad, he goes fishing with "the boys" every summer), and my mom and sister just got back from savannah with our good family friends wendy and liz, with whom we've taken many x-chromosome onlies in the past. i was wistful that violet and i were missing out, but i teared up to see that we were missed too.





the ever thoughtful wendy had turned us into flat stanlies. in an 80s movie moment, violet came face to face with her two-dimensional doppelganger. (or is violet flat stanley's doppelganger? i'll leave you to ponder this existential dilemma while i bandage another bleeding bald spot on my head, courtesy of one of these two.)



we've also been enjoying some summer fun, seeing family and friends.









and to bring this roundabout post full circle, violet is back to full health. remarkably, even the roseola wasn't slowing her down. home sick? time to rearrange the furniture in my room, thank you.