103

This number made me nervous—and a little panicky, I can't lie—late in the evening on Saturday night.

That's what the thermometer said at 10 PM when I snuck into Noah's room to check on his fever. And this was after a long day of worrying about my little man.

We had a big day planned for Saturday—mowing the lawn, grocery shopping, playing outside, and meeting up with my Owl (college sorority) family for dinner with all our spouses (and Noah). The plan was to wake up Noah from his afternoon nap at 4:15, give him a bath, and hop in the car to make it to our 6 PM dinner date.

I went in to wake up big guy, flipped on his bedroom light, and saw that his entire body looked like it was sunburned. I scooped him up and immediately felt that he was burning up. Two thermometers and 10 readings later, we determined Noah was running a fever of more than 102. Not good.

So we decided to go ahead with a bath—a bit cooler than usual—to try to cool off little man and perhaps salvage part of our evening. That really seemed to work, as his skin visibly lost its redness and started immediately feeling cooler to the touch. And Noah was perking up as well.

After much internal debate, I asked David if he was comfortable with me going to dinner without him, leaving him to comfort our little man on his own. Under ordinary circumstances, I would have canceled in a heartbeat, but I had been trying for MONTHS to get together with my pals.

David agreed to let me go, and I asked him to call me every hour to update me on Noah's status. If he got worse, I was going to come home right away (although dinner was an hour from our house). I only made it 5–10 miles down the road before David called me to tell me that Noah throwing up everywhere. Poor, poor little man! I turned right around and went home (sorry ladies!!).

We dosed up our baby boy with Tylenol, put some cold compresses on his head, and hoped for the best. But by 10, he was up to 103. As a first-time mom, I am not thrilled to see a fever of 100. I think 101 is problematic, and 102 is troublesome. But 103? I was flat-out worried. David too.

I know lots of moms who've seen worse. My good friend, Emily, has a son who had fevers of 105 and 106 a few months ago; that would have put me over the edge.

So in full mommy panic mode, I placed a call to the pediatrician. I didn't find the late-night, on-call doctor stand-in to be all that helpful. His advice: "He should be fine if he's sleeping now. Just give him some motrin and tylenol. If his fever hits 103.5, let us know. And then if he starts to seize, you definitely want to bring him in."

Seize?! What the heck?! Are you telling me my son could have a seizure?! What kind of advice is that?!

Lucky us, we didn't have to find out. David drove into town and picked up some baby motrin. Thirty minutes later, the one-two punch of Tylenol & Motrin did the trick. At 12:30 AM, Noah's fever broke, his disposition skyrocketed, and we had a wide-awake 1-year-old on our hands.

By Sunday, his fever was down to 100, he was a happy dude, and he and mommy enjoyed a leisurely nap in the afternoon to catch up on our sleep (that was one amazing nap!).

Today, all is well once again in the McCallen house. No fevers, no lobster skin, no sad babies. Ahh.