Under the Weather, Under the Stars

It rather pales in comparison (I hope!) to LadyKay and her gang's swine flu, but we've been fighting a cold (I hope!) here for a couple of days.

Wednesday night, as we were getting Peeper to sleep, I started feeling a bit of a tell-tale tickle in my throat. By yesterday morning, it was definitely there, and Shrike had one, too.

This morning, my throat hurt and I was starting to feel snotty and sniffley.

A couple of times during the day, I've felt a bit feverish, but the one time I took my temperature, it was normal.

Shrike's reporting pretty much the same.

I talked to our pediatrician's office (and left a voicemail for the grown-up doctor's office, but they never called back) to check on the status of H1N1 in our area, in hopes that we could nip it in the bud with some Tamiflu if it were a possibility. The nurse said they've not seen any H1N1 locally, but they have been seeing a typical beginning of school bug, so that's probably what we've got.

Peeper's seemed okay until this evening, as we were getting ready for bed, when she started sounding congested and being grumpy.

When we tried to get her to sleep (all week we've been going to bed together and working on getting her to fall sleep in the bed, rather than Shrike going to bed while I nurse her in front of the computer and move to bed later) she nursed for a while, then ended up crying, so I got up with her, had a snack, tried to get her to nurse again, and let her lead me back to the bedroom, where she still cried and refused to nurse.

Shrike took the next shift, while I dozed a bit, but I don't think it went much better.

I got back up sometime around 3:30 and send Shrike to bed.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, so I put on the Baby Signs DVD for our no-TV child, and tried to get her to settle down on the couch.

She watched for a while, but she wanted very much to nurse while watching, and I just couldn't manage to find a way to make that happen, so she just got upset.

I let her "walk" and she kept taking me to the backdoor, so I finally went outside - and she got quiet. Immediately.

Only, it was (according to the thermometer on the patio) about 58 degrees out - and 4 o'clock in the morning.

So, I came back in, put on some shoes and a shirt (I was in a tanktop), grabbed a comforter to wrap around her and took her back out.

Again, she immediately stopped whining / crying / being pathetic.

I turned off the porch light and showed her the stars. Then I pulled a chair out from under the roof, sat down and she was finally willing to nurse.

After a couple of minutes, I stood up and walking / swayed / danced in the backyard, singing to her, until she was asleep enough that I dared to come inside and carry her all the way through the house to the bedroom.

The transfer went fairly smoothly but, as usual, I realized I was starving, so I got back up for a snack, and of course, to blog about it.

She always likes going outside, but I couldn't believe that it made such a difference - especially as chilly as it is out there.

Maybe the moist night air made her sinuses and throat feel better. Come to think of it, it kind of helped mine, too.