Measles Vaccine Rash

Measles Vaccine Questions and Answers says

Transmission of the measles vaccine virus does not occur from a vaccinated person, including those who develop a rash. No special precautions (e.g., exclusion from school or work) need be taken.

Nice to know Cale isn't contagious even to those who aren't MMR-vaccinated!

Doctor Update

Cale and I went to pediatric walk-ins this morning because he's got a rash.

On Friday, March 20th he had vaccinations for MMR (measles mumps rubella) and varicella (chicken pox). Cale is allergic to eggs, but just the uncomfortable kind of allergy, not worse. I would rather skip the anxiety of childhood diseases and take the vaccines! Cale also started a 10-day regimen of amoxiciliin for his ear infection. Cale is so agreeable, even when sick, that we were surprised he had an ear infection!

Starting Thursday, March 26th, Cale's morning diapers have not been as full as I would expect and nor does he need as many changes during the day, but he's also not eating and drinking as much as usual either, so it probably balances out. Daddy had his electric blanket on and Cale needed extra cuddles, so I don't know when Cale got hot, but he didn't cool down when I did when I got out of bed. However, Cale's palpable fever went down 10 minutes after we gave him a dose of Motrin, so it wasn't too worrisome. His diaper rash started looking bad today, and he rarely has diaper rash. However, rates of diaper rash double while on baby'mox, so I'm not surprised.

By Friday, March 27th, Cale didn't have a fever, but his diaper rash continued to get worse. He's still not eating well (only one 4 oz jar of pears total for Saturday and Sunday! he's been known to eat 18 to 20 oz per day before!), and he started to refuse to take his amoxicillin Saturday evening.

Sunday, March 29th, Cale had his last dose of amoxicillin in the morning. Sunday evening, my friend Jeni let me know that her kids' amoxicillin usually goes bad before the 10 days are up, and she's had bad results from continuing to give it to them anyway. So we made it to a strict 10 days, and Cale's not going to finish the bottle as I had originally planned. For the first time ever, Cale didn't want me to put cream on his diaper rash, so it must really hurt him now. He started getting mild red bumps on his trunk this afternoon. Another unusual symptom for him was that he was tugging on and scratching at his ears today, so I was concerned about his ear infection.

This morning the bumps had spread all over his body, and were an angry red instead of mildly red!

So we went to the doctor, and she said his bumps look more like measles. (The other choices would be chicken pox or amoxicillin rash. We're all hoping he's not penicillin-allergic, so we're hoping it's not amoxicillin rash.) I will give his a dose of Benadryl this morning to see if the bumps subside then resurge when the Benadryl wears off, and then we'll know. His ears are better, just some fluid on one side, so he's fine to stop the amoxicillin. His diaper rash looks like typical candida albicans, so I'll continue to treat it like that. If his rash gets worse and gets crusty then it's probably a bacterial infection (skin staph) so we'll treat it as such right away if it gets worse. I'm happy to know what to look for, for the worst case. And I'm happy to know this rash is probably just a mild reaction that won't bother him as much as it does me.

UPDATE: gave Cale Benadryl (roughly 1 mg per kg of body weight so 3/4 tsp) at 9:45 AM.
UPDATE 2: no reduction in redness or bumpiness at 11:30 AM. Measles, not amoxicillin rash! Whew.

Walker

No, Cale isn't walking yet! But this weekend, he came up with a new use for an ordinary household item. We have bar stools at the kitchen counter that are taller than Cale. Cale grabs a stool at about his shoulder height, moves it across the kitchen floor, and then follows it. He isn't walking unaided, but, with a bar stool, he is moving upright in the direction of his choice now! Since he can stand for 30 seconds without support, I expect him to start walking soon!

Cale has been practicing for his Toddler Tryouts this weekend ... I think his Terrible Twos could be a challenge! He's just been determined to get into as many things as possible, the more dangerous the more interesting. He's also been practicing his "mountain climbing" on me this weekend. However, he mellows out when we go for a walk outside, so he could just be stir crazy from all of this rain keeping us inside. However, with Karston and Daddy in Florida, he's also been sleeping better at night. I think evening bedtime with Karston is very exciting for Cale, but I can bore him.

Cruising

Oh yes, Cale is finally cruising. He has figured out that if the furniture is long, he can cruise from one end to the other before crawling to the next piece of furniture. Cale is unbelievably fast at crawling! His hips go side to side, and he really speeds past! When he's exhausted, his arms will go faster than his legs so he'll do a stretched-out belly flop on the floor, and then cry because he knows he can crawl better than that. Watching Cale crawl really accentuates what Karston missed from his bad tummy stopping him from crawling until he could already walk (Karston was never a speedy crawler, and rarely did it). He thinks cruising is pretty fun, and will stop to slap on the coffee table just to let us all know how delighted he is to move around, upright, on his own.

While brushing Cale's teeth this evening, I noticed he has two more! Yes, the poor child had two teeth punch through at the same, and to make matters worse, they're molars. I can't believe he's been fairly agreeable lately! Cale's so mild-mannered, he's sweet-tempered when he's in pain and has every right to be fussy.

Cale 1 Year Checkup

At his checkup this afternoon, Cale weighed 20.5 pounds for 29 inches tall with 18.5 inch head circumference. Those percentiles are 20th, 25th, and 70th. The rule of thumb, or so I have heard, is to double the birth weight at four months, then triple the birth weight at one year of age. Both Karston and Cale were about doubled in weight at four months, but neither tripled at one year. Karston was about 18 months when he reached the 3x mark, so we'll see how Cale does on that time scale. Cale's pretty healthy and normal. He has ten teeth, and is working on #11, which is a bit ahead of schedule. Maybe we'll get this teething over with sooner; rapid teething might explain why Cale chews on everything. I thought teething explained why Cale hasn't been sleeping well lately. However, he did have an ear infection, a better reason not to sleep well, so the doctor sent out his first prescription for amoxicillin. This was my first experience with electronic prescriptions. The prescription went to the pharmacy electronically, and I picked it up at the grocery store around the corner from the doctor (after they saw my insurance paperwork since this is Cale's first prescription). But he's a happy, healthy one year old boy!

ONE YEAR

I can't believe my sweet baby Cale is one year old now! He's a very fast crawler, and he can crawl up stairs (but not down, although he will take the face plant if that's how he gets down to get closer to Karston). He pulls up to stand, and he can stand unaided when he forgets to hold on (if he's holding a cookie, important work for his hands). Cale really tucks in to his food, easily out-eating Karston most days. He makes lots of sounds, but doesn't really talk yet. He laughs at so many things! He loves to play games and take baths, and does his most-est to keep up with Karston. Cale's a great little guy!

Pixie

Cale just came crawling down the hall as fast as he could (I was washing up in our bathroom) to let me know he had made the greatest discovery in the world! He found Karston's Valentine's candy leftovers, including a pixie stick (a paper straw with flavored sugar inside). Since Cale feels the need to have paper in his diet, he started chewing on it. Not only did he get paper, he got sugar! Oh, was he ever excited with this discovery of sugar inside of paper! He crawled as fast as he could to find me, and once he found me, he waved his pixie stick triumphantly over his head! As if to say, Look, mom, it's the best thing ever! This paper has sugar too!

Snow Imaging Ten

This morning we woke up to two inches of very sticky snow, with bare snow-capped branches in a winter wonderland. Cale didn't enjoy snow the first time, so I planned to stay in with him. (I also feel like I might get a sore throat, so indoor air is kinder.) Well, when Cale saw Daddy and Karston suiting up, he started reaching for Daddy, hopped out of my arms to crawl to Daddy... usually that means he's hungry, but he had just eaten. So I put Cale in his snowsuit (before the Abominable Snow Man grew up, he might have been an Adorable Snow Baby too), and then in the backpack. Daddy got quite the workout, toting Cale on his back and pulling Karston really fast on the sled. Our active terrier-mix dog Emma had a blast running around them too. Karston was so happy to wear his new hand-me-down coat that he got from Chris last night, I wasn't sure he was ever going to take it off. Karston says his formerly-primary coat is now Cale's because it little like Cale who's within 5 pounds of Karston so who you calling little?

This afternoon, Karston had his medical imaging referral from the pediatric GI specialist. He was very good for the abdominal ultrasound. I'm still impressed with the high resolution of the newest ultrasound machines! Next was the upper GI fluoroscopy, and as we feared, Karston wasn't up for the barium swallow. Swallowing is, I suppose, too close to eating, and he's rarely up for that. We tried to coax him into it, and I warned him it would get awful if he didn't drink his chocolate milk shake for the camera. Karston held on tight to my hands, and I regret scratching my nose because I can still hear him cry, Mommy, hold on to me! hold on tight! We don't want to repeat that. Despite parental trauma, Karston was a genuine trooper who didn't squirm. He scored a lot of stickers and a blue squeaky dolphin (think rubber ducky, but as a blue dolphin with a really loud squeaker inside). Afterwards, we let him pick what he wanted: green chips. I don't know why he said green chips, but despite the fresh snow coming down, we took him to Bandido's for green chips. He plowed down gummy fruit on the drive over, and then he worked his way through a whole lot of green tortilla chips. Wow, eating! If he were wondering, yes, if he eats like that regularly then he won't have any more appointments like we just had. He also talked me into three Hershey's kisses once we were home. He doesn't seem to have any structural flaws, so that's probably not it. We'll go back to the specialist in just over three weeks to see what's next to help Little Mr. "tummy hurting" Karston.

Just like that, Cale now has ten teeth. The first of his first molars, upper left, took forever to peek out. It was swollen, lumpy, and bothering him. The upper right first molar just popped out without much fuss (not that Cale slept well the past several nights, but that's not too far out of line either). I noticed it while brushing Cale's teeth this evening.

The Party

This afternoon we had a birthday party for Cale, his friend Chris (ok, my friend Jeni's son), and Chris' immediate male line of dad and grand-dad. Cale will be 1 in just over 2 weeks, Chris turned 2 last week, and the dads don't have to admit age. With the season, lots of people were sick (or maybe scared off by the forecast of blizzard at 4 pm that wasn't), so we had extended family and our neighbor Maria with her two girls over. 14 adults, 6 kids, and our basement wasn't crowded.

Baking for the party was interesting because both birthday babies have allergies. The train cakes were yummy even without milk, soy (in margarine), eggs, barley, or oats. However, allergy avoidance led to fairly healthy party snacks! Other than cake, we had fresh fruit and veggies, and rice chips with fresh guacamole.

Karston loves parties! Jeni brought over a hopping ball (a ball with a handle that kids can sit on to hop all around), and Karston hopped most of the afternoon and all evening. He loved playing with the other kids in our basement (he's Chris' height but weighs much less, and he's nearly four, almost twice Chris' age). The inflatable palm tree forest held up to rough kid play remarkably well! Karston asked if Chris' big brother Will (only 5 weeks older than Karston) could stay. Actually, he asked that with both arms wrapped around Will so Will couldn't go anywhere! We had to distract him with the hopping ball. Karston really liked Cale's birthday present of stacking bath cups. Bath play is a big hit around here; a fast bath takes us an hour.

Cale, who also didn't nap but is young enough that that really matters, didn't work the room as much. However, Cale did show me his two new favorite games with Amy, flick and mountain climbing. For flick, once he's eaten enough chips, Cale likes to flick small chip bits off of Amy's knee and laugh. Baby giggles are great, and from the sound of it, so is this game. Cale also likes to climb people sitting on couch mountain. He started sitting on the floor, then pulled himself upright. With some help from Amy, Cale climbed into her lap. Then, standing on the couch, he was just determined to climb over the back to see out the window. And was pretty happy to start over on the floor, ready for more mountain climbing again. Cale really liked his spinning race car toy, especially chewing on the handle, but also watching he cars go around.