Poor Baby Robbie

I should have known something was up yesterday when Robbie woke up from a four-hour nap and wanted to cuddle. He never naps for four hours. And he never wants to cuddle in the middle of the afternoon. But, I didn't want to ruin the moment.

Poor baby Robbie woke up around 10:00 last night and was burning up. His fever was 103.1. All he wanted was to curl up in between Justin and me and drink milk. I'm not sure milk would have sounded good to me with a fever, but he kept asking for it. I put him back in his room around 11:00, and he slept until 12:30. He woke up crying, and, I'll admit, it took me a little while to wake up enough to go in and check on him. Robbie sat up in his crib as soon as he saw me, handed me his bottle, and said, "More."

Well, the "more" came back to bite him (and us) at 4:30 this morning when he woke up in full-on sobs. Being the compassionate wife that I am, I kicked Justin and told him to get up. I believe I said something along the lines of, "Get up. I've been up twice already with Robbie. It's your turn." Justin asked if he should just bring Robbie into bed with us. I said (as patiently as I could), "Only if you don't want to get anymore sleep." To which my always-eager-to-please husband replied, "What am I supposed to do?" I'll give him that it was 4:30 in the morning and he'd been rudely awakened, but I don't know what to do anymore than he does.

I felt a little guilty about waking up Justin when I probably could have taken care of the situation by myself (but I decided about a year ago that it was better to inconvenience him for fifteen minutes than lie awake irritated that he'd slept through everything). My guilt propelled me out of bed and into Robbie's room. Justin was elbow deep in poop and soaking pajamas. Robbie, with his red cheeks, had tears rolling down his face. And his bed? Soaked through. Fortunately, after I changed the sheets, Robbie went right back to sleep and stayed asleep until I went in to check on him at 7:00.

As soon as Robbie heard me come in his room this morning, he popped up and started talking to me like we'd been in the middle of a conversation. His fever had dropped to 99.7, and he seemed to be feeling fine. In fact, he was even particular about what he wanted to drink this morning. Robbie handed me a bottle and said, "Nait. Nait." I put flavored water in, and he returned the bottle to me, insisting, "Nait. Nait." Sure enough, when Justin came back with milk in the bottle, Robbie grabbed it out of his hand and sucked it down.

I had hoped that Robbie was on the mend, but I realized this was not the case as soon as I walked through the front door of Zhining's house. His eyes just looked sad and tired. His cheeks were red. His body was an inferno. And he didn't want to be put down. I tried to take Robbie's temperature when we got home, but he wriggled away from the thermometer before it beeped. It read 102.4.

He went to sleep easily and without any dinner, and I haven't heard from him in three hours. Justin and I are keeping our fingers crossed that everyone in the Manna house will get a good night's sleep tonight and that, more importantly, poor baby Robbie wakes up all better.