Fever, Fears, and Talking

Poor little babe woke up with a fever this morning. He slept well last night, all snuggled into me, so I actually felt that he was warm before we even woke up... but I don't get too worried about fevers and I figured I should let him sleep. He's only at about 101 and seems fine otherwise, normal appetite, good mood. I hope he won't be sick for Christmas!

He's been going through some weird fearfulness lately. I know that fear of strangers is normal at his age and so it didn't surprise us that he screamed when he met Santa. But other things have been freaking him out too. When we went to our playdate, the hostess's father-in-law answered the door, and despite him being very soft spoken, that made Miles cry fearfully. Later, he crawled down the hall, looked up at a light fixture, and made that scared cry. His toy keyboard scares him when the tempo gets turned down too slow (!). Yesterday when I was baking the electric mixer terrified him - that one is more understandable since it's a big loud noise. But then in the bath, the drain made a little gurgle and he became scared of the bath and had to get out. Sigh.

Then when we went to bed, he fell asleep normally, but woke up crying in fear a few minutes later, and I had to turn the light on and let him fall asleep on my chest. Earlier in the week he woke up from a sound sleep and seemed to be panicking, screaming so hard he couldn't catch his breath!

I'm thinking this is probably a normal phase but I can't seem to get any google results on it. I hope it doesn't last a whole month but if it does I will ask his pedi about it next time we go.

I keep thinking that maybe all this anxiety is foreshadowing a big developmental leap - like walking? I've coaxed him into taking a step or two. I know he can do it, because he has turned walking with a push toy into a very complicated activity and has great balance, but he is still nervous about walking and usually gets down to crawl instead.

I'm really not sure but I think he has said, or tried to say, some words in the past week. I think he said "mommy" when he was whining to be picked up - it sounded like "Mamie." I think he said "peekaboo" while I was playing peekaboo with him - he was laughing and saying "boobooo." And I think he was saying "ball" last night when we were playing ball with the dog. It sure sounded like "ball!" But this are all unofficial because it's still too hard to distinguish from babble.