Talk about a week to remember (or forget) - Kaitlyn's first fever

Age of Lady Kaitlyn:  13 months and 3 weeks

Family,

Seriously - when's the last time you slept this well?

And a good Tuesday evening to you from the Queen City, where the Bull is now back at home after a work trip to London.  WHAT A WEEK TO REVIEW, made all the more interesting by the fact that I wasn't even on the continent for 85% of it.  But that has never stopped this humble bard previously, eh? :-)

So Saturday night was my flight to the UK.  Team Taylor's day was wonderful, and it was obviously tough to leave.  The toughest part was not just the reality that this would be the longest stretch I had ever been away from my daughter, but also the apprehension of knowing that, for 96 hours, Kaitlyn was going to be away from both parents, as Jenny was planning to fly to the UK.  We had been planning this particular venture for more than 2 months - a celebration of Jenny's major life change before settling into the new routine - and I can honestly say I felt GREAT about our preparations.  But as they say, the best laid plans of mice and men...

Sunday Funday with Presley...24 hours before
the madness kicked off in earnest...

For starters, we had typed up a 7 page document about everything the grandparents would need to know (the plan was that JT's folks would watch her Tues-Fri, and then my mom would watch K Fri-Sun until I returned) - schedule, foods, alarm codes, access codes for daycare - you name it.  Also, Jenny stocked the house on Monday as though we were preparing for the zombie Apocalypse.  Daycare knew about the plan.  The Pediatrician and ENT numbers were on the fridge.  All was set to go.

And so imagine my surprise on Tuesday morning - at 7:08 AM UK TIME - when I got a text from Jenny.  It came through as "please text when you are around," and I just assumed I'd missed it from the night before (we didn't get to chat that night, and I never managed to make FaceTime work while over there).  Two seconds later I got the follow up text "if you can," and I realized JT was writing to me IN REAL TIME (a la 24).  I knew then and there we had a problem.

Now as a bit of back story, K had been coughing for the previous week, and Jenny said that she was concerned she was getting sick.  Now I tend to be a bit like my dad on this one and just assume that "nah, she's never sick," but there is no question that Jenny was right on this one.  And it was confirmed at 2 AM on Tuesday morning when K spiked a fever of 102.6.

So picture the scene:  Jenny is set to fly out in 16 hours.  We have already paid for the flight.  She and I can't even talk on the phone because I can't get my phone to dial internationally.  There is a Tube Strike, so I can't even stay at the hotel for too long because we know we need to fight the crowds for what few trains will come through.  Jenny hasn't left the country since returning home from Singapore. Kaitlyn has NEVER spent a night without both parents present.  And, most inauspiciously, Kaitlyn has NEVER had a fever before.

Tools of the trade

Jenny and I agree to monitor it, but the reality is that, by 8 AM in Charlotte, there's no question the fever is on its way up (103.6).  JT takes K to the doctor, and the Peds tells JT that this is consistent with the virus she's seeing going around (apparently it's a good thing that it's viral vs. bacterial).  She puts K on a regimen of Benadryl and Advil, administered every 8 hours.  JT gives me the news, and we have the conversation.  In the end, there was no decision to make - our daughter was sick, and there was no way we were going to leave her care to anyone other than her mother.  And so, for the first time in history, Team Taylor availed of travel insurance and cancelled the flight.  And it was a good thing, too, as the next day K's temp spiked to 104.4!  That's the highest we'd ever seen, and Jenny and her mum (who stayed over Tuesday, Wednesday, most of Thursday, and some of Friday - THANK YOU, Jan) had to begin alternating Advil with Tylenol every 4 hours whilst giving K a tepid bath to cool her off.  The reports from Jenny were that K was quite lethargic but at least had some energy whilst the meds were in her.  However, she wasn't eating much (just chugging milk).  K also tried Pedia-lite for the first time and HATED it.  Not sure why, but since this illness she has REFUSED to touch water - only milk for her.

As long as they kept the Munch on a steady diet of
Advil, all was right with the world.  It's amazing how
clockwork the medicine was - the fever really did
begin spiking every 8 hours.

Now don't get me wrong - Jenny UNQUESTIONABLY had it worse.  Her daughter is sick, and nobody in the house is resting.  She's just had to cancel her first international flight in 3 years, and she had all these lunches and dinners with friends (including a 4 day holiday with her friend from Manchester).  I cannot compare to what she was going through.  But I must say, it was MISERABLE being separated from all this by an ocean and knowing there was NOTHING you could do about it.  Also, between FaceTime not working, not having the proper access codes to dial from the office, and just the work that we had to do, I have never been more ready IN MY LIFE to leave London than when I boarded that plane on Saturday (originally I was flying Sunday after spending the weekend in London with Jenny, but I managed to pull it back one day after she cancelled).

I returned home to a beautiful wife who was exhausted but in GREAT spirits considering everything and a little munchkin slowing getting her appetite back.  She was quite lethargic all weekend, but I didn't complain, as her favorite activity was laying on daddy. :-)  It was just so amazing to be back at
home with my girls.  I love London, LOVE international travel - but this time was different.  When I landed at Heathrow this time, the city actually didn't feel like home - a sensation I haven't experienced since 2007.  Don't get me wrong - it was still AMAZING (especially on an expense account), but there was something unmistakably missing - my wife and daughter.  As I went for my run through Regent's Park and Primrose Hill the day I landed, I found myself (for the first time ever) just looking at all the mum's with strollers and all the kids at play.  That's when I knew that what Jenny and I had discussed back in 2012 was well and truly real now - roots, they are a'growin' in Charlotte, and there is no place like home.

"I'm sexy and I know it..."

And so there you have it, an unbelievable week that saw my poor wife worked to the bone during her first week as a stay at home mom and saw her first big trip in quite awhile vanish.  However, I am CERTAIN that we'll get her to the UK and Europe this year, and I just have to say again a) how incredibly proud I am of my wife for working so tirelessly to take care of the sneetch, b) how grateful I am to Jan for being such a wonderful grandparent and partner, and c) how thankful I am that the wee one is now on the mend (appetite is most definitely back!).

And on the development front, I just have to say how CRAZY it is that our daughter is now using SIGN LANGUAGE!  Seriously, you always see parents doing this, and until this past week I was NEVER a believer that any of this worked.  The whole notion of non-verbal communication in infants just seemed incomprehensible to me, but all that changed last week when my daughter gave me the "all done" sign.  Seriously - she waved her hands.  I put another piece of food on her tray.  She picked up the food, looked at me as if to say "I said I was DONE, moron," and then chucked the food to the floor.  She then waved her hands again.  I handed her some milk, at which point she looked at me again to say, "Will you never learn, half-wit?" before slapping the milk out of my hand.  And then she waved her hands again - she was well and truly done.

Dora the Explorer is BACK, Daddy!

It has been amazing.  She now doing the signs for "more," "eat," "milk," and even "please!"  We are working on thank you, and we're pretty sure she's trying to say the word "more" when she makes the sign - INCREDIBLE!

She's also starting to get a bit better with flap books.  Her favorite at present is "Dear Zoo," and I have been quite impressed to watch her memorize where the flaps are and how they are opened.  Genius, I'm tellin' you!!! :-)

Ok - that's enough for this round.  What a week!  Fingers crossed this one will be more relaxed!

Love,

Sam and Jenny