Extreme Parenting Paranoia

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This was not taken during the even described below but it went well with the story

Last night Eliot and I took Lydia to her first Indigo Girls concert which was downtown St. Pete in honor of the Folk Festival. It was an open venue and free. We met the Rohrs down there and happily ran into Jeni and the Klinkenburgs. It was lovely. We found an easy parking spot, attached our car seat to the stroller and strolled over. We have one of those that if you open the coverings to both the car seat and the stroller it completely keeps the baby covered. Our pediatrician in the hospital was very clear in telling us to avoid people congested areas for at least two months because people like to touch babies. Wide open spaces like parks and such were of course okay and visits to close friends also a-okay but it is flu season and Lydia is very tiny. She won't get her first immunizations until she is two months old. There is also apparently a Whooping Cough epidemic out there at the moment. Of course, Eliot and I got the flu shot and the booster for whooping cough/tetanus and something else. Through my breast milk I will pass some of that to Lydia, plus the great colostrum she received she will have some great defenses against infections but we are still being cautious. Since the concert was not crowded and open air, we figured what the heck. Mind you we had the baby in stroller lock down and even our closest friends didn't hold her last night. We had a great time. It was great to be out for a couple of hours and Lydia sleep the full two and half hours we were out.

At about 3AM, Lydia made a sharp noise that woke me up immediately. I went to pick her up because it was about the right time to feed her. Her mouth had white bubbly foamlike stuff on it! I panicked. Eliot and I leaped out of bed. Lydia was not hot to the touch. She was breathing fine. She was just too deep into sleep we couldn't wake her. The panic got worse. I was sure that the hippies at the Indigo Girls concert had infected my baby with some sort of foaming at the mouth super sleep disease.

We changed her diaper in hopes that it would wake her. We danced and wiggled. We took turns trying to wake her as the other looked through books. Nothing in What to Expect in the First Year or in the American Association of Pediatrics book about spit foam. I googled spit bubbles and sure enough. This was yet another normal baby behavior! Spit bubbles... of course! What kid doesn't like spit bubbles!

Even though we had found a rational reason for the "foam". We still wanted the peace of mind of seeing her eyes wide open. Finally, at 4AM we were bathing her. She was wake! Success. She was fine and clean. Back to bed.