Week 38 – The Equinox

The Molloy family is very excited that spring (and spring weather) is finally here. Elise loves being outside, so the past seven weeks of being cooped up in the house have felt extremely long. A lot has changed since we began our winter hibernation – Elise is like a whole new baby. She is going to sleep easily, sleeping through the night consistently, she is crawling, pulling up, eating finger foods...none of which she was doing when it first turned cold. The most interesting thing to reflect on this week is that our little baby is turning 39 weeks old, so she will have been out in the world for just as long as she was in the womb! It’s so strange to think of length of time in those terms. It feels like an entire lifetime ago that I was pregnant and another lifetime ago since she was born.

We did, however, get an ever so brief glimpse of what it was like back in those infant days this week. It is time again for Ellie’s monthly cold (it’s like clockwork!) but this month all the congestion and coughing also came with a fever (her first) and a whole lotta poo.

It all started last Sunday when she pooped eight times in 12 hours (just like when she was an infant), even waking up in the middle of the night because of the diarrhea. It made us realize how rare it is these days that she wakes up in the middle of the night (my how things change!) and took us back to the bad ol’ days when that was the norm. It’s funny how all you talk about is her horrible sleep patterns, waking up every single night (sometimes several times) and the next thing you know you can’t even remember the last time she didn’t sleep through the night. You become spoiled so quickly!

Elise and her great-grandmother Wolfe (Nanny)
Everything returned to normal – sleeping normally, but bad congestion. Then she was acting a little funny on Thursday night, but we thought she might just be overly tired. She doesn’t really nap well at daycare and often comes home completely exhausted. Friday morning she was a little grouchier than usual, but she’d woken up earlier than usual (around 5 am) so we figured she was still as tired as we were! I got a call from the daycare at 11am that our little one was acting lethargic and had a temperature of 103.5 degrees!


Rationally, I know that a fever in babies is very different from one in adults and that 103 really isn’t anything to be too alarmed about. However, as a worrier, I panicked and made a doctors appointment, just to be sure. Sure enough, the doctor said that she had a virus and that there was no medicine to give her - it would just have to work through her system. Give her Tylenol every 4 hours and nurse a lot so that she doesn’t get dehydrated and hold off on the solid foods for a few days since they are harder to digest.

Of course, Ellie fell into to the “nurse frequently” order very well, so well that she even woke up a 4am on Friday night for a snack. Not cool Elise. Not Cool.

Luckily, that was just a one-time thing and she’s feeling much better. She’s a healthy 98.6 degrees, and has begun her newest party trick: climbing stairs. Oh boy, Spring just keeps on springing.