Carsten's first cold :(

It's finally here. His first cold. His first fever.

We've been trying hard to avoid colds with washing hands and hand sanitizer, especially when he was younger and then while we were traveling at Christmas so that way he'd be healthy for our overseas move. Since we've been here, he's had very little exposure to other children, and I still maintained my washing hands routine. So, we've been fortunate that it's taken almost 7 months for him to get sick - what a blessing for a healthy baby for that long. I've started going to the gym where they have babysitting for children under 9, which means that now he has a clear route to germs. However, I'm not sure he got it from there as I had a cold last week, so it's likely that he got my cold. Which means the poor guy started out with a sore throat and will end with a runny nose.

Carsten started getting a stuffy nose Monday night, which made for a rough night. We did not have a humidifier, and the air is pretty dry right now, so I'm pretty sure that didn't help. Tuesday was a good day despite his stuffy nose, and I actually went to the gym in the morning because he really seemed just fine except for the runny noses (runny noses are ok at daycare). However, I started noticing that he has a real lack of appetite for solid foods, but he still seems to be eating breastmilk just fine, which is a blessing. In the evening, after supper we noticed that he was very flushed and we measured a temperature of 99.7 F under his armpit. So, hence the first fever. At least it's a low-grade fever, so we just gave him tylenol and a tepid bath, and put him to bed. I should also mention that Andy came home about 30 min early so we could go to the store and pick out a humidifier. They didn't have a large selection this time of year, so we ended up going with a travel model that uses a plastic water bottle as its reservoir. So we put this in his room at bedtime, and it seems to really have helped. He was only up twice and we didn't hear him waking up and falling back to sleep as often. In fact, he's still sleeping right now, and it's almost 9 am, which is quite late for him. Hopefully he's sleeping off his cold, and since he's such a happy kid, I'm sure today will be a good day.

We usually go to moms and tots at church today, but since he had a fever last night and is sick, we will not be going. So thus begins the first thing I will miss because he's sick, but I'm not really sad about this because I just want to see him healthy again. So, we have a relaxing day at home planned.