About two weeks ago, on a Sunday afternoon, Béla got his first fever. I didn't actually measure it, as he spent about four hours doing nothing but nursing and sleeping on my lap while sweating, and I didn't want to disturb his rest. Jer was at a rugby game, and by the time he got home Béla was already doing much better. That night and the next morning his temperature was higher but not terrible, something like 38.5 C, but then Monday night it got up to 41 C, which left him really miserable. Luckily it responded quickly to paracetamol (what acetaminophen is called in Europe, a.k.a. Tylenol, which is given to kids here as a suppository rather than liquid), and he was soon happily playing again. Interestingly, he was pretty happy still until the fever went above 40 C or so, and he never lost interest in nursing, although he had less of an appetite for other food. In fact, when the fever was really high, he pretty much wanted to nurse non-stop. At least I could do something to comfort him.
Tuesday morning I called the doctor, but I already had a routine exam scheduled for the next day, so decided to wait until then to go in. That Wednesday he aced his six month check-up despite not feeling 100%. (8.7 kg or 19 lb. 2 oz., 69 cm or 27.2 inches long, head diameter a whopping 46 cm or 18.1 inches, and, as my doctor said, the motor skills of a 9 month-old. She assured me that he'll be walking well before a year. Okay, I'm done bragging now.) The doctor checked him out, his ears looked fine, but his throat was a bit red. She figured it was just a virus, and it would clear itself up soon enough. Basically, since he was still nursing well, his fever responded to medication, and he seemed mostly okay about 18 hours of the day, there wasn't a huge cause for concern.
Unfortunately the fevers started coming with chills on Thursday night, while I was out at yoga, and Jer was worried enough that he went to ask our neighbours for advice. Instead of just getting hot he was starting with cold, even purple, hands and feet, cool cheeks, but a hot forehead, and shivers, whimpers, and shallow breathing, and then he'd fall asleep, sweating like crazy, and wake up shortly after with a high fever, and really miserable. This repeated Friday and Saturday afternoons. Sunday I went for brunch at a colleague's place, as I'd only left the apartment once since he got sick and was going a bit batty. He was fine all day Sunday, but woke up at 1:30 Monday morning with the chills, and had a high fever from 2:30-4:00. Of course I went back to the doctor Monday morning, as it was now 9 days with a fever, and they treated him right away despite the waiting room overflowing with sick children.
Apparently a fever without other symptoms can be a sign of a urinary tract infection (UTI), so they brought him into an examination room right away to put on a collection bag that attached like a band-aid all around his genitals. It looked uncomfortable, but he was fine, and the nurse said to dress him back up and head back to the waiting room to wait for a sample, which would hopefully arrive before I went in to see the doctor. I put the diaper back on, but we weren't going back outside, so I didn't bother putting on his tights or socks, I just put his pants on, and didn't do up his diaper shirt or put on his sweater. So I'm walking around the waiting area with him (there were nowhere near enough chairs for everyone), and this 8 year-old kid worriedly points out to his mom that my baby isn't wearing socks. sigh. I assured both him and his mom, and anyone within earshot, that I did actually have tights and socks with me, and that his feet were perfectly warm. The unspoken answer was no wonder your baby's sick.
It turns out that he did have a UTI, so they started him on antibiotics right away, with a follow-up appointment two days later. They gave me the urine collection bag to put on before leaving the house so there was a sample by the time I got to the doctor, and it was better, but still had elevated white blood cells, which is normal in case of infection. He'll be done the antibiotics this coming Wednesday, and on Friday I have to bring in another sample so they can culture it to be sure the bacteria are gone.
He responded really well to the treatment, and didn't have another fever. In fact, he seems perfectly fine. The funny smell we noticed in his diapers has also gone away. (I know, we should have figured that out before, but I thought it was just because he was eating more than just breast milk now.) He's got his appetite back too, and now that we know it's not contagious, he and I have been able to get out and meet up with other moms and kids again, which I usually do at least a couple times a week. It was a looong week and a half being cooped up at home with him.
One thing that was a bit different from what I remember about antibiotics as a kid in Canada was that the bottle came filled with powder, and I had to add the water to make the solution myself. To make 100 ml of solution I had to add only 37 ml of water. It didn't even look possible, but it did work. I even took a picture because it seemed impossible. It's mostly sugar (5 ml solution contains 3.1 g sugar), with aspartame in to be sure it's sweet. Despite this, it's been a battle to get it into him most times.
In other non-baby news, Jer and I got our hair cut last Friday. My hair's been getting rattier due to the post-pregnancy hormone shift, and I've been wanting to get it cut for a while, but it's hard to schedule with the baby as well. Jer hadn't had his hair cut since he was in the military - not even a trim in three years - so he was well past due as well. I ended up making a family appointment for last Friday at 5:00 - Jer could come a bit earlier from work, and we could take turns looking after the baby while the other person was getting their hair done. We went to a salon about a block away that's run by our friend Grit's parents. Her mom was very excited to meet Béla as well, and he was quite spoiled while there, coming home with a little easter sheep as well. And he was quite taken by the many, many mirrors. Much more fun than the single mirror in our bathroom. Here's my new 'do, which I'm pretty happy with:
And Jeremi's:
It's really not what he'd planned. He went in with this picture from when we were in Ireland, but they really didn't want to cut all his hair off. I think they were worried he'd regret it. In any case, he ended up with this in-between sort of haircut. We're both getting used to it, but his first impression was that it was a little bit Price Valiant:
And my first impression was that he looked like a brown-eyed Dr. Niederbühl, a character from a German soap, Sturm der Liebe (Storm of Love). I now know that he's played by Austrian actor Erich Altenkopf. See what I mean? I think it's also because his beard is freshly trimmed.
Okay, back to the baby. He has a new favourite vegetable - okra. He's had it before, and like it then, but I thought it might have just been the sauce, but we made it again last week with a bunch of Indian food, and it was the first thing he grabbed at each meal. Here he is, going to town on it:
The thing is, he can't really chew the fibrous outer coating well enough to really break it up, but he gums it and sucks out all the insides before spitting the outer layer back out. (A few bits of the outer coating do get swallowed though.) While he's working on it, we can't really tell if there's anything in his mouth, until one of the long green points starts to slide back out, which really looks like he's got a little lizard in there and its tail is coming out. Unfortunately this picture is out of focus, but you get the idea.
And one more random picture of him, all dressed up and ready for our walk/going out to lunch on Sunday. It was his first full meal in a restaurant, and it went really well. I think he ate less than he usually does at home, but he had a good time with all the new food, new high chair, new people to charm... 
And finally, as promised, a couple of videos. The first one is pretty short, but features Béla's syllable of last week, "ba", combined in a greeting to his Baba and his Baba-baba (the silly name my baba is going by to her great-grandkids). Before this, he'd mostly been saying "ah", with the odd consonant thrown in, with the exception of three magical days when he said nothing but "mamamamama". (Alas, those didn't make it onto video.) Apparently it's pretty common at this age that they pick up a new sound and repeat it exclusively, and then move on to the next. As part of his 6 month check-up (U5 for those in Germany) the doctor asked about what noises he was making, and that very evening he decided to start with "bababa". I guess once he understood the assignment he was ready. I think this video was taken the next day, when he had a fever of about 39 C. As you can see, he wasn't suffering too badly at this point.This video is a bit longer, and shows off his latest trick - making a "berzer", or raspberry on any surface at all. He's made raspberries with his lips for a while now, but it was only this past week that he figured out that if he made it against something that it would be much, much louder. This video is a bit longer, but pretty cute.
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