cafe mellowdharma

Roseola, Rugrats, and Runny Noses
LANNEA CAN CRAWL! Yep, she’s officially a rugrat. She’s been crawling for about 2 weeks now and is really beginning to zip around… she can even make it up our steps. She just loves to be able to get to where she wants by her own locomotion. She is also standing on whatever will support her and one of her favorite things is to hold herself up using mommy’s legs and peek up between them at mommy. In other news, Lannea had her first really snotty cold. We treated using saline spray, the occasional nasal aspirator, lots of fluids and sleep. We spent a good amount of time in a steam-filled bathtub, which worked wonders for her congestion, not to mention she enjoyed splashing in the tub a heck of a lot more than that rubber bulb up her nostrils! Adding yet another milestone to her life to date, she came down with her first childhood disease: roseola. She came down first with a sudden fever… no other symptoms, just a very high fever (100-103 F). I called the pediatrician and they told me to treat the fever with some Tylenol. So long as the fever was controllable with Tylenol she’d be ok. So I did, and strangely enough, that was all that troubled her for about 2 days. She acted completely normal otherwise. Then the fever vanished and 24 hours later she started breaking out in a rash all over, mostly on her face. It was slightly raised and the pimples’ size ranged from a pinprick to a felt-tip marker tip. Once again, I called the pediatrician to report this new condition. They asked a bunch of questions regarding the duration and nature of the fever and rash, if there were other symptoms; if she had eaten any allergy foods, etc. and were quite decided it was roseola. They told me it was quite contagious so long as she had the rash but that it should be gone in 3-7 days. Sure enough 3 days later it vanished… whew!!! After looking up roseola on the web, I found her to be quite a textbook case. SO for all ye who may someday experience roseola: it starts with a very high fever 100 - 103 F that is controllable with Tylenol, and no other symptoms until 24 hours or so after the fever breaks, at which point a slightly raised pink rash appears. Thankfully Joel and I are getting much better with our affliction of newparentitis, (a term coined by Joel) and we handled the roseola incident with only a few outbreaks of panic as our firstborn made her way through her first fever and later as she became a preview of teenage-hood with her little face polka-dotted with the tell-tale rash of roseola.

Lannea’s first trip to the beach!
We took advantage of Joel’s 4th of July holiday day off and his great aunt Charlotte’s generosity of letting us stay in her condo and brought Lannea to the beach! We drove the six hours from Atlanta at night… strategically planning it so Lannea would sleep the whole way instead of driving during the day. She would have gotten bored and impatient sitting that long, restrained in her little carseat. Our plan worked, she slept the whole way! We spent a lot of time just hangin’ out at “Auntie’s”, eating, sleeping, drinking coffee, reading, playing. We went to the beach in the mornings and evenings so as to avoid Lannea getting her first sunburn. She LOVED the beach! Being a water baby herself, I think she felt right at home, and perhaps even remembered the buoyant bouncing of the waves from last year’s trip to the beach when she was in mommy’s belly. She wasn’t sure what to make of sand and stared at it on her hand after tasting it. She loved the water lapping her, the colorful floats and umbrellas, the sand, the kids, and the commotion. We can’t wait to bring her back again next year when she’ll really be able to run around and play! PHOTOS SOON!!!! (I'd post them now, but lannea is ready for her mommi to come play...)