streaming

Poor Swee'pea is STILL sick. That's five days of fever, which seems finally to have given way to a streaming nose, puffy, runny eyes and, no doubt, pounding sinuses. And a nasty, barking, phlegmy cough throughout. I took him to the doctor on Friday and he didn't have pneumonia or an ear infection, but this is one VERY miserable virus. Every day his fever recedes for a few hours, his eyes brighten, almost momentarily, and maybe he eats a few bites, making me think he's on the mend. But then his fever spikes again and his eyes get that only too familiar glassiness and I realize that he just keeps getting worse. Every day, for the last five days, I've thought things were getting better only to have them worsen. I'm starting to lose hope we'll ever emerge from the sickness.

In addition to the drooping and drippiness, it seems that his sleeping habits have regressed to his habits of infancy... he refuses to be put down, not even on the couch, for almost all of his sleep time. I must say I'm handling it much better than I did when he was four months old, knowing that we've survived it before, and it will surely improve once the poor kid feels better. In the meantime, we read and watch tv while a considerably heavier and more mobile baby sleeps and kicks and coughs and grunts on top of us. I like to think he gains some comfort from the thunderous sound of our hearbeats right against his ear, remembering the bliss of those timeless, floating days before the knowledge of bodily concerns like hunger, or cold, or streaming sinuses.