Tummy Hurts

LR woke up with a fever on Saturday morning. Because it was low grade and he was playing happily, we decided to try a run to Ikea. It was a little overwhelming to all of us and he fell asleep on the way home. When he woke up, his fever went up to close to 103 and he spent the rest of the day resting on me on the couch while watching A Bug's Life. (He loves the scenes with the bird.) Saturday night was a rough one. Very little sleep and lots of attempts to get the right medication into him. The problem is that he'll take Motrin, but it doesn't break a fever as well as Tylenol. Unfortunately, the Tylenol is gross and once I start giving him that, he'll reject the Motrin too. I picked up 3 version of Children's Tylenol, grape, strawberry, and meltaways, on Sunday hoping that he would like one of them. No dice. Every time I made him take it, he dissolved into tears and hiccups.

We're were supposed to host my book club's BBQ on Sunday, but I canceled it to keep the other kids from picking up whatever LR has. It was by far the nicest day of the summer so far and it was a shame we had to spend it inside. In the afternoon Daddy and LR decided to nap in our bed and LR woke up screaming. He was inconsolable. He was stiff as a board in my arms and clenched his fists and raised them to his head. When he calmed a little, I asked him if something hurt. He said, "hurt, hurt, tummy hurt, tummy hurt" and then cranked up the volume on his wailing again. It's the very first time he's been able to tell me what's bothering him and I felt completely helpless. I didn't know what to do that might help. He hadn't eaten much for the past 2 days, so it could have been hunger, or maybe gas, or upset because of the Tylenol. He drank a little water when he calmed down and the episode passed. Unfortunately, it wasn't the last one. He woke up at 11:30pm last night with the same thing and we were just considering taking him down the street to the hospital when he calmed down and fell back asleep.

During the night his fever broke and he slept much more peacefully. The fever spiked again this morning, but I'm hoping we're on the tail end of whatever this is.