Saturday morning we packed up a few things and drove about an hour to Garden Valley, Idaho, where my friend Sage’s family has a cabin. We were late getting out of town (surprise, surprise), but luckily, Sage and I have been friends since the fourth grade, so she knows my tendencies. We arrived at her parents beautiful cabin around noon and Maite, Sages 2 1/2 year old daughter immediately began asking if she could hold Belén. Nowadays, she doesn’t have to be quite so careful since Belén is quite sturdy. She even got to hold her all by herself.

Maite and Belén in Garden Valley

Chance, Sage’s husband, also got a turn and even then, Maite was thrilled to keep playing with her.

Chance holding Belén while Maite Plays With Her Hand

Sage made a nice lunch of potato soup and turkey sandwiches and we settled into the cabin. After lunch, Andy and Chance went wood cutting for a couple hours to begin to fill Andy’s 2 cord wood tag. While the guys were gone, us girls half watched a movie and half hung out, chatted and tried to play a card game that I made up for Maite. I also attempted to teach Sage one of my favorite games, cribbage, but it was hard to keep Maite entertained while doing so (Belén was napping). It was very nice and relaxing.

As the evening approached, I noticed that Belén was acting fussy, which is unlike her. I started wondering if she had eaten enough when I realized that her head was warm. About the time Andy and Chance came back from cutting wood (Andy had a huge grin after using his new chainsaw, I could almost hear the man grunting from Tool Time), I became convinced that she had a fever. We had a laser thermometer in our diaper bag that we used and it said that her temperature was around 99 degrees. Sage is a physician assistant (PA) who works in a family practice doctors office so she counciled us that we need not worry because if the temp is not 100.4, there is no cause for concern. She asked if we wanted to borrow her rectal thermometer and I said that we didn’t need it at the time as I was sure Belén was fine.

Andy was cooking up a dinner of traditional Mexican tacos and just before they were ready to eat, Belén proceeded to get more and more fussy and started acting kind of out of it. I asked Andy to hold her and see what he thought while the taco meat was in its final phase of cooking. He agreed that she did not seem right, so I asked Sage if we could borrow her rectal thermometer.

We took her temp and it was 102.3. I acted very calm but I was freaking out inside…our baby’s first fever. I was both thrilled to have Sage there, our own personal medical expert telling us step-by-step what we should do, but I was also very concerned that Belén would/had exposed Maite to whatever she was fighting.

When Sage learned of Belén’s temperature, she instructed us to give Belén the Infant Tylenol that we had in our diaper bag. Belén had been eating all evening, I think because it gave her comfort in her moment of feeling like crap. As Sage squirted the Tylenol into Belén’s mouth, Belén got this really strange face. Sage proceeded to put the rest of Tylenol into her mouth and Belén’s response was to throw up A WHOLE LOT of milk all over me, herself, Sage and the kitchen cabinet we were standing next to.

Sage calmly, in her best instructive voice said, “okay, the Tylenol is not staying down, now we will take her to the bathtub to cool her down.” I continued with my calm on the outside, freaking out on the inside manner as Sage and I went into the bathtub to try and cool the baby down. Meanwhile, Andy was taking the Dutch Oven full of taco meat off of the coals.

Belén seemed to cool down a bit in the cool bath. After the bath, I dried her off and put her in her breathable Patagonia long johns since she had puked all over her only jammies. Wouldn’t you know, the one time I only bring one pair… Sage instructed me to try and give her the Tylenol again and this time she kept it down.

We started taking her temperature every hour until she was out of the fever range. That night, we actually woke her up a couple of times to stick a rectal thermometer you know where to check how she was doing and decide if we should continue to administer Tylonel. I have since been lectured by my dad (who is also a PA) that continuing to get a rectal temperature is unnecessary and probably quite uncomfortable for the baby. Apparently you are supposed to go off how the baby is acting and check the temperature when they are acting really out of it OR check it if they seem super hot. So I admit, we were probably obsessive and paranoid, but it was our first time seeing our baby really sick so I think it was justified.

At one point around 2am, I was laying in bed knowing that I needed to check Belén’s temperature in 45 minutes so I decided to just lay there rather than going back to sleep. I had a moment of clarity with an issue from work and was surprised how I was suddenly able to quickly figure out a problem I had been mulling over. Funny how that happens.

By the next morning, Belén’s fever was gone, although I was still concerned because her temperature was in the 99 range. We continued to give her Tylenol since she still wasn’t acting like herself. Sage instructed us to go into the doctors if the fever persisted for more than 48 hours without another symptom OR if things began to get worse and she acted really out of it again for a sustained period of time.

We drove home and spent the rest of the day snuggling with Belén and as she felt better playing with her.

Not exactly the relaxing weekend we were looking for, but it was still really nice to get out of town and I feel so thankful that Sage was able to walk us through our first health scare with Belén.

Oh and I forgot to mention that the tacos turned out amazing and I had purchased the BEST marionberry pie from the Volcanic Farms stand in Horseshoe Bend that went fantastic with the dark chocolate I had brought from home. Definitiely a great weekend with the exception of Belén freaking me out with her fever and exorcist projectile vomiting. Poor little thing…

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