Poor Baby Hailey!  She had a really rough weekend.  It all started this past Friday when she went to the doctor’s office Friday morning for some vaccine shots.  After the doctors, Jamie dropped her back off at school and we got a phone call an hour or so later saying Hailey had a fever.  At first we thought maybe it’s just a brief thing from the shots and the school gave her some tylenol to help bring the fever down.

A few hours later we got more calls and the fever was getting worse so Jamie rushed over and picked her up to bring her home.   We did the typical things you should do when a baby has a fever, we kept her cool by giving her a bath, which she hated - she normally loves her baths.  We tried putting damp wash cloths on her forehead or back to help cool her down but she’d jump as soon as they touched her skin and cry.  Poor baby was shivering with anything even slightly cold.  We managed to get her to a comfortable level before she went to bed Friday night.  She woke up feeling warm but not bad Saturday morning but now we had a new twist.

Something that was completely alien to Baby Hailey!  She wouldn’t eat!!  Jamie made her a nice breakfast with peaches and little orange slices and a muffin.  She ate some of the muffin but wouldn’t touch the fruit which was a sign right off the bat that something was wrong.  The rest of the day she wouldn’t eat a thing, she totally refused lunch and dinner.  Luckily though she drank lots of juice to keep her fluids up, I felt so sorry for her and wished I could just make it all go away.  She was miserable.  Her temperature at one point peaked at 104 degrees and we called the doctor for advice.  They told us to just keep doing what we were doing, that it was all a reaction to the shots and to increase her dose of Tylenol.

Sunday morning came around and we were blessed that the fever was finally gone - and unlike Saturday it stayed gone the whole day and night.  However Baby Hailey wasn’t totally back to normal just yet.  She refused to eat most of the day and what’s worse she refused to drink most of the day too.  She even turned down milk, which is not like her at all.  We took her outside for awhile to get some fresh air and eventually got her to eat half of a lunch we made for her which was great.  She still refused her juice but when she saw me drinking some fruit punch she wanted some from my glass.  After a few sips and she got the taste of it, I let her watch me poor my glass into her sippy cup and she went to town.  Later last night we got her to eat the rest of her lunch and drink a bottle of milk before she went to bed.  Still no fever but hopefully today her appetite will return - don’t want Baby Hailey to lose to much weight!!

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Fellow parents and bloggers, we all love putting our kids pictures, videos and stories up for our friends, family and anyone who is interested to see our daily lives.  But in the world we live in we have to be cautious how we do it.  If you, like us put your child out for the world to see please be sure to be careful to still keep certain information private.  I know we put up pictures of ourselves and our kids and we use our names on our sites, but we still need to keep a certain amount of anonynimity for our families.  One way to do that is to go under false names.  Another, be cautious not to give out information like last names, schools your children attend or other information that could aide a potential predator in finding out to much about you.

While we hope nothing like that ever happens, we also don’t want to put ourselves in a situation where we or our kids are in any danger.  When you write on your websites or put your videos up on YouTube, just keep in mind that you don’t always know who may be watching.  If you run a blog or other site about your children, take care to make sure your personal details are secure on your domain name.  Someone with not much computer knowledge can find out who owns a domain and even where they live, so check with your hosting company right away and see what security they offer to keep you anonymous.  If your registrar or hosting company doesn’t offer this service, www.domainsbyproxy.com is a good company to check out. 

Keep putting up those cute stories!  Just keep you and your family safe at the same time!  God bless you all!

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Someone que up the ‘tense’ music.  This is a topic Jamie and I don’t necessarily agree on, who would have ever thought a mom wouldn’t want to spank her kids? (End Sarcasm) Now before you freak out on me, no we aren’t even considering disciplining Hailey right now.  First, she is much to cute, ya she’s at that age.  And while we’re on age she’s also way to young. 

Now maybe our opinions stem from how we were disciplined while we were kids.  Her dad had a bigger paddle than mine I guess.  I was spanked with hands, belts and this little old ping pong paddle.  They all hurt.  But it wasn’t so much they hurt that made me cry and made me fear the spanking.  The thing I remember making me cry is knowing I was in trouble and I was getting punished.  Dad definitely spanked harder than mom.  Mom would at the most do an open hand slap to my butt.  She would barely tap me but I’d cry as if she were holding a bull whip in her hands. 

When Hailey or Abby are old enough to understand that they are being punished for doing wrong, not just being beaten by an angry parent, I want to make sure Jamie and I are on the same page for punishment.  My vote?  A good spanking.  I don’t need anything but my palm to do the job, no paddles, belts, sticks or whips.  No thank you, just my hand.  To me it’s enough to get the point across of “don’t do that again”.  Whatever that was, I’m sure they’ll get the idea.

Maybe it’s just because Hailey is so cute and cuddly right now that Jamie doesn’t want to spank her at all.  I can understand that, a mother will always want to protect her daughter.  So do I, but in my opinion disclipine is a form of protection.  How?  Glad you asked, if a child has a sense of disclipline they are less likely to be one of those teenagers walking around in those clothes that you swear you’d never let your kid wear out of the house.  I see them all the time, teenager girls dressed like strippers and talking like sailors.  Never seen one?  Just go down to the mall or stand in line at your local movie theater.  They are there.  It’s my opinion a little discipline would have helped those kids out and gave them a little self respect.  Now, I’m not talking military school kind of discipline, but parents that didn’t just let them do whatever they wanted to do.

Every time you turn around there seems to be government rules tightening down on how parents can discipline their kids.  Now, if someone gets crazy and pulls out a baseball bat because little Johnny says something he shouldn’t, well that kind of thing shouldn’t happen.  But let’s not let it get to the point where you can’t even give your kids a good stern talking to.  Sometimes a spanking is just what a kid needs. 

Who’s with me?

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