How Do You Take a Baby's Temperature?

Henry is only 8 months old, but he’s already proving one of the laws of raising children, no matter what you buy them they are going to end up playing with the box the thing came in for even longer than the actual present. Case in point, one of Henry’s favorite toys is the empty box a case of diapers came in. We had it lying around because one of our cat’s Spock would go in it and sleep. But one day I had the bright idea to put Henry in it and push him around and the rest, as they say, is history. Now I’m pushing him all around the apartment and making train noises every night and he loves it. It’s like a roller coaster for babies.

Taking Henry to the grocery store can be a lot of fun. Something about it puts him on his best behavior. I think he is the kind of person that likes to get out of the house and see the world. When he’s holed-up inside the apartment playing with his toys all day he gets cranky, but if you take him out to the stores or on a walk he doesn’t make a peep. He’s too busy looking around at everything and everybody. If you park the grocery cart in one spot Henry will track people as they go about their shopping. I was in the produce section last week and two or three people commented on how observant Henry was and how he was watching what they were doing. I couldn’t help but wonder at what age does being observant fail to be cute? At what age will people start to say, “Why is your kid staring at me?”

Last month I talked about reading “Green Eggs and Ham” to Henry (and even posted a video) about how I started developing voices for the characters. I guess it’s just something to do when you’re reading the same stories to the kid over and over again. Well, I’ve also started doing voices for “The Cat in the Hat.” I’ll spare you a video this month, but I will say that my voice for the Cat is a sort of obsequious used car salesman. I can picture him saying something like “we’ll find you the perfect car. I just know you’re going to love it.” Carol said that my Cat has an affectation. My voice for the fish is definitely out there; I just started doing it because it amused me. His voice is my attempt at Sean Connery and depending on the night it sounds something like a Darrell Hammond’s Connery or on worse nights just some sort of bizarre attempt at a Scottish accent, but Henry doesn’t care. I think he’s just trying to figure out what the heck is happening in that crazy story.

Henry had his first bad cold and fever this past week. He seems to be all over it now, but for a couple of days we constantly had to check his temperature. How do you check a baby’s temperature?… All the parents are laughing now…. Well let’s just say it’s easiest to check his temperature while you’re changing his diaper. I felt sorry for the kid; I certainly wouldn’t want anyone to stick a thermometer up there. Have you ever seen the Skeptical Baby meme? One of them says “You want to take my temperature where exactly?”  Carol and I both caught Henry’s cold too. One night, Henry is in the bathtub and Carol starts taking her temperature the normal way under her tongue and I’m whispering to her, “don’t do that in front of the baby, it’s cruel to let him know there are other ways we could be taking his temperature.” Hence my contribution to the meme “You mean to tell me there are other ways you could have taken my temperature.”