Teething Blues Once Again!

Eric loves mojitos- non-alcoholic, of course!!

Over the last week, I have been to the doctor's office several times.

OK, no, it wasn't for me.  All last week I had Eric at home with me because he was sick with a high fever.  So, I wasn't able to get much done around here, and am a bit tired myself.  I guess I was getting accustomed to the good life of being able to bring Eric to the Escoleta in the morning and enjoy playing with him in the afternoon.  I'm having a hard time remembering how I ever got anything done with him at home every day.

It all started on Monday, which was "San Vicente" day, a strange sort of holiday here.  Mauri had off from work, but many things were open because it is really only a Valencian holiday.  We are in Alicante and not Valencia, but since we are right on the border between Valencia and Alicante, Denia has adopted a lot of the holidays of both places.  Denia often seems to identify itself more with Valencia than with Alicante, too, which is apparent in the fact that Fallas are celebrated here to a much greater extent than Alicante's fallas counterpart, the hogueras.

Sheena doesn't want Eric to sleep...she wants us to play with her!!

On Saturday Mauri's cousin, here from Valencia, had come over and her husband had made us a paella.  It was really good, and Mauri decided that he wanted to buy a paella pan and burner.  Incidentally, the day they came over it rained, and Eric was playing on our new trampoline with her daughter and Noa.  It was still a bit wet, and he got wet playing on it.  We had to change all of his clothes afterwards, so maybe that had something to do with his cold.

Anyway, on Monday we bought what we needed, and went home to make our first paella.  Eric fell asleep in the car, and since it wasn't too hot out, we decided to recline his car seat and let him sleep there.  His nap lasted pretty long, and when he woke up, he refused to let us get him out of the car.  He wanted to stay in his car seat unbothered!!
We kept checking on him, but it took awhile for him to let us get him out of the car.

Once out of the car, we tried to feed him our paella, something he normally enjoys eating, but he didn't want to eat anything.  He just didn't seem himself, and ended up falling asleep in his little portable "high" chair.  We took him out to play some more, but he just wanted to lie down on the trampoline and later on our hammock outdoors.  So we let him sleep for the majority of the remainder of the day.

It wasn't until we went indoors a little later that I noticed that he was starting to feel really hot.  He felt so hot that I automatically gave him some kid's acetaminophen, and he seemed to feel a little better.  He seemed to shiver at bath time, though, and, despite having slept most of the day away, went to bed without any problems afterwards.

Poor, tired, sick Eric!!

The next morning his fever was nearing 40º (39.8º) C, and I figured that with as high as it was, it was probably best to bring him into the health center.  At first I was a bit nervous about it.  I was afraid that, with my luck, that the doctor on call for emergencies would be Eric's old doctor, and that she would see that we had switched doctors.  I decided, though, that it was worth risking it.

Sheena!!!!!!  Pesada!!!!!!

As luck would have it, his new doctor was the doctor on call, and she took a look at the "poor little baby."  She said that it looked like just a bad cold for now, and that he didn't need any antibiotics yet.  His throat looked a little irritated, and his ears looked a bit "if-y," so if things weren't any better the next day, to bring him back to have another look.  She gave us a prescription for children's ibuprofen, and that seemed to really help bring down the fever and help Eric feel a little bit better.  Since he's obviously bothered by his teeth coming in, the fact that ibuprofen is anti-inflammatory also probably helped with that.
The next day, though, he seemed a little better, so I didn't bring him to appointment that I had made for him just in case.  As the day went by, though, Eric kept getting worse, and whenever the time for his next dose was nearing, his fever went shooting upwards.

Playing on the trampoline

The ibuprofen did such a good job at making him feel better, though, that as soon as he took the medicine, his fever went down, and he was ready to go play outside, inside, or wherever I would take him.  Not able to bring him to the Escoleta, though, yet having him be just as active as ever, it was hard to know what to do to keep him happy and distracted.

Since it was windy outside, I ended up bringing him to the mall to walk around with him for awhile and let him play on the toys there.  Unfortunately the malls here aren't exactly catered to kids in the same way that malls are in the US.  So, there aren't exactly kids' areas like the ones that he played on during our trip there.  All that's available are coin-operated cars that cost 1 euro for a very, very short ride.  The one penny horse at Meijers lasts way longer than the one euro rides at our nearest mall.  Luckily, though, Eric is still at an age where he prefers to play on the toys when they are still, and letting him play on the "rides" that way isn't a problem because everybody here seems to do it that way.  With as expensive as they are, I've only seen one of those rides actually running once, and was amazed by how quickly it stopped after the people paid their euro.

There is one play area for kids, with a little house, a slide and a few tables and chairs, but I've only seen it open once, and don't know exactly how it is supposed to work.  I'm assuming it is probably only open on Saturday afternoons, when the mall is at its fullest, making it unappealing to go there unless it is a necessity.  Poor Eric saw the slide and house from his seat on the car, and went running to the door and started screaming when I wouldn't let him in.  Mean mommy would have loved to have let him, but it was, of course, closed off, and the door was, as usual, locked.

Mommy, I want to go in there!!!

Lately I have been thinking up a huge list of things that I miss in the US and things that, in comparison, really irk me here.  I may have to share those in another post because I know of a few Americans currently here that happen to read this and who just might be able to relate.  (No coffee houses, bagels, decent cupcakes, 24 hour 365 days a year superstores...) sigh- all for another day.
Back to the story...

My lower molars are finally breaking through!!

I was noticing how Eric's two lower 1st primary molars were finally breaking through the gums, and thinking how strange it was that he still was missing one of his lower lateral incisors, when I realized something that I had never noticed before.  We had noticed that his lower midline was slightly shifted to one side, and I had previously thought that maybe the displaced teeth were making it more difficult for the other incisor to come in.  When looking at his teeth, though, I noticed something else; Eric's lower right central incisor had an unusual shape.  It was slightly larger than it should be, and had a pronounced groove on the top edge of the "tooth," more or less where the end of the tooth should have been.

Notice the wider lower right incisor which is likely the central and lateral fused together

That's when it hit me: his two lower right incisors have most likely fused into one tooth!!!  I had studied this in school, but our examples were just so much more obvious than Eric's tooth.  (This happens when the tooth germs come into contact when they are forming, causing the formed teeth to be connected to varying degrees.)  Seeing as how he never got his lower right lateral incisor, though, it finally all made sense.  Hopefully this won't cause us too many issues with loss of space for the permanent teeth, and with some luck, his permanent teeth will be normal and unaffected.  We'll just have to wait and see...

As for his cold, I ended up bringing him back to the doctor on Friday morning.  She said his ears looked a bit clogged, and gave me some drops to put in his ears for the next few days.  She told me that she would be on call on Saturday, so if he wasn't well I could bring him back then.  If he didn't improve over the weekend, I was supposed to bring him back and we'd look into giving him antibiotics on Monday.
Luckily, though, over the day Friday Eric seemed to progressively improve, and I haven't needed to give him any more ibuprofen since then!!

What else can I tell you?
Well, Eric is getting much more expressive.  If you ask him if he wants something, he will very likely shake his head and say "NO!"  Actually, he says "no" very often, like when you try to bring him somewhere he doesn't want to go, when you try to feed him something he doesn't want to eat...
He still doesn't say a lot of words, but he does now ask for "agua," which could actually mean water, milk, juice, mommy milk...
He also screams out "mama mama" when he wants something from me.  As for sentences, despite barely being able to say any words, he continues to say "ya está" quite often, and more recently says "no va" quite often.

Mmmmmm Mc Fish!!

At the mall the other day, he ate his first Happy meal, and really seemed to like his "Mc Fish" (aka. Fillet -o-fish in the US).  He also liked the little car that came with it.
While he is getting to be increasingly more fun and interesting, he is also becoming more difficult and demanding.  He is quite quick to scream out when he doesn't want to do what you want him to do.  He also may kick and scream, throw things on the ground, hit you...
I guess that is what ring a toddler is all about!!