Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Hot heads run in the family

Baby Rachel had a hot head this morning. She awoke at about 5 AM and when I picked her up I was for sure she had a fever. A concerned parent, I took her downstairs for examination. She had awakened an hour or two earlier than usual and I was prepared to be up until the doctor's office opened. All my thermometers in the house are in need of new batteries or are lost so I was basing my fever observations purely on human touch. Then I thought about our day at the pool. We only spent a couple of hours there and she was mostly in the shade. I looked at the sunscreen bottle and the label read to ask doctor before using on infant under 6 months. Whoops! Maybe I shouldn't have saturated little Rachel with the aerosol sunscreen before going to the pool. I was a little stricken with panic, that I poisoned my baby with sunscreen so I searched in the cupboard for a thermometer and was lucky to find a working one. I decided to go for the rectal reading and it read 98.6 degrees. Good news! No fever, just a hot head and we went back to bed. I called the doctor later in the morning and questioned why baby's aren't supposed to use sunscreen, without giving away the fact that I already had done so. The nurse told me that it can clog their sweat glands. So my theory is that I temporarily clogged Rachel's sweat glands and she was unable to naturally cool her head down. She seems to be fine now and my mom reminded me today that another one of my kids had a hot head as well.

I bathed Rachel before going to bed last night at about 11:30 pm to get off the lotion. Rachel is not accustomed to regular baths. I'm a lazy mother and think it sufficient to do a thorough daily wipe down with a baby wipe until Sunday morning when when I quickly bathe her in the master bathroom sink. Consequently Rachel is still not fully used to being doused with water. This was her sequence of reactions to her Monday night bath. It was only her second time in her whole life of being in the big bath tub. I think she looks like a Jib Jab character in the first photo. Her head really isn't that enormous.

"I'm not so sure about this."


"What the ... ?"


"This totally bites!"


"Get that camera out of my face and let me go to bed!"

2 comments:

  1. Too funny, especially the second picture!

    ReplyDelete
  2. well, i forgot the sunscreen on Grady and we had family pictures. I would much rather have had clogged sweat glands than the sunburned, blistery, scabby head that my baby has now! I thought cradle cap was gross. The aloe has turned his poor head a little bit green. Now it really looks like that avocado rind. YUCK! I'm a horrible mother!

    ReplyDelete