Last Tuesday, December 22nd, Allie was 17 months old! Unfortunately, the poor little girl was recovering from strep and possibly the flu. You can see how uncharacteristically unenergetic she is here:
[[image:allie453a.jpg:Poor sick baby:center:0]]
She had been fever free for a day, but was still weak and listless. She was diagnosed with strep throat and the doctor suspected the flu (although she did not test positive for flu) and had been on tamiflu and amoxicillin since Friday (the 18th). She had high fever and was just a ball of heat, the poor baby. She stopped eating, surviving on shrimp crackers (keropok udang), water, fruits and milk and rarely had a smile, and was super clingy, needing to be held all the time. She even refused her beloved bread, that’s how ill she was.
She was showing signs of recovery in the morning, managing to eat half a roll at breakfast.
[[image:allie452a.jpg:Aummm:center:0]]
Now if you think that’s a lot, that really isn’t for her. On a normal day she would eat her bowl of blueberry + milk + oatmeal, and eat a whole bagel (minus the crust) for breakfast. But half a roll was more than she’s managed to eat in a few days and we were encouraged. She was very lethargic and took extensive naps:
[[image:allie454a.jpg:Sleeping on Mama:center:0]]
[[image:allie455a.jpg:Mama is a nice pillow:center:0]]
Of course, since it was a Tuesday, I had to work. She slept in my arms for a lot of the day though. Then we noticed that she was developing a rash on her body. We called Allie’s doctor and went to see her again. The doctor took a look and diagnosed it as non-allergic amoxicillin rash. It’s harmless, but even so, Allie was taken off tamiflu and amoxicillin and was prescribed a different antibiotic, cefdinir, for 7 days.
Here’s an example of how she reacts when we try to give her medication:
[[image:allie456a.jpg:Let me go!!!:center:0]]
But she did get a reprieve from meds because the doctor said to start the first dose the next day. No meds since the morning doses, and cefdinir is only once a day (the others were twice a day). Woohoo! As night fell, she did seem to get better. I’ve decided not to post her most pathetic grumpy/irritable pictures but concentrate on pictures taken in the evening when she started becoming more herself.
Here she is at dinner, actually making the “more” sign:
[[image:allie459a.jpg:More roti canai, please:center:0]]
You can see a bit of the rash on the side of her face there. She ate some roti canai (the frozen kind – I didn’t make it from scratch). That’s like a paratha, for the non-Malaysian readers out there. And she was obsessed with the pen and paper:
[[image:allie457a.jpg:Writing her opus:center:0]]
[[image:allie458a.jpg:Examining the pen:center:0]]
[[image:allie460a.jpg:Hmmm the ink comes out this end?:center:0]]
[[image:allie461a.jpg:Scritch-scratch:center:0]]
[[image:allie463a.jpg:Two pens! Wheeeee!:center:0]]
[[image:allie464a.jpg:Left-handed experiment:center:0]]
[[image:allie462a.jpg:Happy with roti canai and writing:center:0]]
Then she spent some time on the floor:
[[image:allie465a.jpg:Practising her New Year’s Eve moves:center:0]]
[[image:allie467a.jpg:Her first smile of the day:center:0]]
[[image:allie466a.jpg:Smiles for Pursley:center:0]]
Then she found more writing implements:
[[image:allie469a.jpg:Completely focused:center:0]]
[[image:allie470a.jpg:Oooo stop making me laugh, I’m concentrating:center:0]]
She finally totters around unsteadily on her feet, but she’s actually making the attempt to walk (she was just sitting down and looking pathetic for a while).
[[image:allie468a.jpg:Walking walking, ignoring Mama:center:0]]
[[image:allie472a.jpg:Taking some help from the chair:center:0]]
She’s slowly been getting better, and in the last few days she is back to her normal happy and garrulous self. She’s been running around eating us out of house and home, thank god. And so we have survived Allie’s very first illness. Allie has been learning a lot – she knows what an alligator does (the gator chomp – Meghan, you’ll be happy about this), also has added a bunch of other animal sounds, such as bear (rowrrr), rhinoceros (snort and snuff), rabbit (chomping mouth, as if eating a carrot), three singing pigs (la la laaaa), etc. She loves building blocks and has been doing well with her shapes toys and simple jigsaw puzzles. She still loves her books (when she was crying during her illness, she was only calmed by reading her books or reciting her books from memory). It’s been another awesome month and we can’t wait to see her grow and develop, and hopefully remain healthy!
And to close, Allie blows us all a kiss:
[[image:allie471a.jpg:Mmuahhhhh:center:0]]
Postscript: Forgot to mention that Allie now has 4 teeth! She did get her two front teeth for Christmas!
