My poor baby girl has her first ear infection

We'll hope that it's her last...but that's probably wishful thinking. Leah has had on and off fever between 100 and 102 the last few days but we thought it was just a bit of a respiratory virus. But last night she just couldn't sleep. She went to bed at 7 and went right to sleep, but she woke up about 10:20. I held her for awhile and I put her down. We went back and forth between holding her and listening to her cry for a long time. Then when we realized something must be wrong because she just doesn't usually cry like that, I closed the bedroom door so that Shafi could sleep and I tried my best to get Leah to sleep.

From about midnight to 2 a.m. I tried everything - pacing, sitting down, reclining, sitting up, pacing. Nothing kept her calm for more than a few minutes other than pacing - and she gets heavy! Finally a little before 2, I put her in her stroller and rocked her back and forth - and in about 3 minutes, she fell asleep. Unfortunately that sleep was short. From then until about 5:30 a.m. she slept for between 10 and 30 minutes at a stretch in the stroller. When she would wake up and start to cry I would get back up and rock the stroller some more. Around 5:30 that no longer worked. But by then she was so exhausted that she was willing to fall asleep on me while I got to lie down in bed. Eventually I was able to shift her to next to me...and we slept until about 8:30.

We went to the doctor at 10:30 this morning. She said Leah has a respiratory infection - we should watch for bronchitis or croup - but at the moment it's neither. She seems to be breathing fine - just has a nasty cough and a runny nose. And she has an infection in her left ear. So we got an antibiotic and in about 2 days she ought to be feeling better. We're now trying Motrin to help the fever and the pain and it seems to be helping. Leah napped about an hour and a half this afternoon, so we'll see how she does tonight. She did go right to sleep when we put her down at 7. And the doctor said she'll no longer be contagious once the fever has been gone for 24 hours - so hopefully the fever will be gone tomorrow - and soon we can start getting out and about again. I think we both go a bit stir crazy being stuck at home.

On a more fun note...Leah's been saying "wee-ah wee-ah" a lot lately. And a couple days ago it struck me that she was saying it after I said "Leah." Indeed - I'm pretty sure she's trying to say her name. So now when we ask her "What's your name?" she says "wee-ah" - it's incredibly adorable. I'll see if I can catch it on video soon.