"Bad Mommy Award" goes to...me.

My sweet 3 week old Camille has a virus.

Last night I noticed what look like a serious case of heat rash all over Camille's little barely three week old body. What I read in Dr. Sear's "The Baby Book" is that heat rash is generally found in the folds and creases of a baby's body and around where diapers sit. What Camille had, or has is all over her body, legs, arms and trunk. The rash is angrier around her folds and under her diaper, but in places that one would not usually find the prickly like heat bumps.

I checked this morning and the rash persisted through the night. It was a little calmer this morning, but still present. A call was promptly made to the Dr. office and I took my sweet Camille in this afternoon. I began to go through my mind as to what else would cause the bumps, like a sensitivity to the soy milk Im drinking (because she is sensitive to cow's milk), or her flaky newborn skin, or even again just a bad case of heat rash. I knew it could not be associated with my laundry detergent because I use free detergent, as in free of dyes and perfumes and I don't use fabric softener either. I ran all of my ideas across the Dr. and he shot each one down and finally settled on some viral infection. He then asked me "Do you take her out a lot?" Um...yes, I do. He looked at me and I noted something in the glance and he promptly reminded me that newborns do not have the defenses to ward off viruses and I should not take her out to frequently.

The crappy thing is, I know this. I know that babies, especially the new newborns are crazy suseptible to all kinds of sickneses. In my cockiness, I guess I figured the rules did not apply to my child partly because Adalyn was hauled all over with Derek and I and she never came down with anything. In fact it was just a month or more ago that she had to go on her first round of antibiotics at 2 and half years old. I am grateful that all Camille seems to be suffering from is the red bumps on her skin and no fever or stunted eating or weird poops, but really mom, it could have totally been worse.

So my lesson learned here is, although I may feel up to climb a mountain just days after birthing my baby, my baby is still, well, a baby. Fragile, precious and not just something to show off to others for admiration. I need to slow it way down, if not for me, for my sweet Camille.

(PS she is not contagious!! Which again is better than it could be because then I could stress about all the people I infected graciously sharing my child with anyone who wanted to hold her.)