the terrors of motherhood

We were supposed to fly to Cape Cod this morning, so see George's aunt, Mike and Abbey, and some other family. We are so excited to get up there! But our trip has been somewhat derailed. Last night Charlie had a horrible time going to sleep. This is a kid who goes down at 9 p.m. without ANY fuss - we literally change him, kiss him, lie him down, tuck a "lovey" blanket animal under each arm, turn on the sleep sheep, and turn off the light. No need for rocking, singing, reading, whatever - the kid just likes to get in bed and go to sleep. Every once in a while he'll talk to himself for a little while in the crib, but he doesn't cry or yell or beg us to come get him in baby talk - he just plays and crashes out. We realize how lucky we are! Anyway, last night was not such a pleasant experience. We put him down, he went to sleep, and then about an hour later, he started fussing. We checked on him, tucked the pacifier back in his mouth, re-started the sleep sheep (he likes the sounds of waves crashing to lull him to sleep) and left the room. Half an hour later, he cried out again. Fast-forward to midnight, when the outcries now and then have turned into full-scale wailing. We didn't know what was bothering him, so we gave him a dose of baby Tylenol (which we learned today was only half a dose, based on his current size), a little formula, rocked him for a half hour or so, and put him down. He made a few more peeps here and there, but by 2 a.m. he was out for good. We had to get up early to make our 9:30 flight out of BWI, so I wasn't thrilled at only getting a few hours sleep, but was glad he finally seemed content.

I got up at 6:15 to jump in the shower, but decided to just peek in on him first. Imagine my horror when I could see even in the dark that there was a stain of something on his sleep ramp! It seems that he had a nosebleed at some point after his 1 a.m. tuck back into bed, and there was blood all over his little face, in a large dessert-plate sized circle on the ramp, and on his sheet. PANIC! I ran in and woke George by shoving the bloody pillow in his face (in hindsight, not the nicest thing to do to someone!) and then we both ran in to check his face, ears, eyes, etc and call the emergency nurse.

As it turns out, nose bleeds are not uncommon in kids. Thanks for telling me! When their little systems get dried out or they are congested, nose bleeds can happen with some frequency. Charlie's got a couple of his trademark mosquito welts, one of which looks to be infected like the last time he got bitten (joy) so that may have caused some congestion, which in turn caused the nose bleed. The doctor wasn't concerned, and confirmed that he doesn't have swine flu (although she told us she thinks all the kids are going to be getting it this fall - great!) or some other horrible condition. And she cleared him for travel. So we will be headed to the Cape tonight - hooray! Hopefully the plane flight will be uneventful - thank you to the nice Southwest lady who must be a mom for re-routing us with no ticket change fee or any additional costs. Stay tuned for new photos soon!