Hand, Foot, Mouth, and Everything Else!

Lord have mercy. The last few days in this house have been....exhausting.

Last weekend Olivia came down with a crazy fever in church. I mean she was HOT. She took a nap, was clingy (which she never is) and was totally sluggish. It scared me to death. So we got some fever reducer in her and lots of liquids and she managed to get some food down, but the temp just spiked again a few hours later. Overnight was rough--clingy, constant waking, crying, fever. We kept her home from school Monday. She did well during the day, but the fever went up again at night. By Tuesday morning she was acting more normal and eating fine but I noticed a rash developing on her hands, calves, and toes. AHA! Chicken Pox!

I made an appointment with her doctor to confirm my sharp diagnosis. The doctor took a look--nope not Chicken Pox. Then he took one look inside Olivia's mouth and then look at me and smiled, " It's Coxsackie." My response "damnit." I had heard about "Hand, Foot and Mouth disease" from my sister's experience with my neice and another friend of mine and her kids, now Olivia had it. In fact she was pretty much done with it--and handled it pretty well considering. Apparently the rash shows up when the fever breaks. After the fever she's no longer contagious but then we were freaking out about how she got it and if Lucas had been exposed. The doctor said she was safe to return to school once she had no fever for 24hours. So Wednesday she returned to school with non-contagious rash just in time for her first SCHOOL PICTURES! HIP HIP HOORAY! I covered her arms in long sleeves and legs in tights and it was a beautiful 75 degree day. Come to find out three other kids in her school had been out with coxsackie as well. Aha! And turns out sandboxes can be breeding grounds for this thing. Olivia comes home with gobs of sand in her shoes and pockets everyday.

I'm glad that it is behind us and she is now immune--and also thankful that Lucas dodged the bullet, but I am not looking forward to dealing with this thing again with him anytime soon.

Charm City Daddy and I crash every night, only to be constantly awakened at least twice a night by Lucas! Lucas was just beginning to improve in the sleep department but had a total relapse this week--with daytime naps, bedtime all of it.  It is driving us both to near tears.We thought we had a fool-proof system all figuredwith Olivia--no frills, no fuss. It turns out we may have just had a fool-proof little girl. He JUST gave up swaddling at 6 months. If it were up to him--he would still be swaddled.


Lucas' separation anxiety is off the charts too--and to top it all off he seems to be a shy guy. He balls his eyes out when he sees an unrecognizable face. The well-meaning church ladies who crowd around him every Sunday are the worst for his nerves. Poor baby.

Also--Olivia is officially done with the paci at bedtime. She has never needed it at naptime at school and it was time to let it go to avoid her mama's overbite. It wasn't easy, but I told her I simply threw it out of the window of the car--just like she did to her paper elefante from Spanish class on the ride home. She certainly understood the permanence of that action and it ended our discussion. Awesome.

Oh! And CCD celebrated our 4 year wedding anniversary this week. We decided to celebrate the way we've celebrated all of our anniversaries--with a family dinner out--but at a nice restaurant to give the kids the experience. They were well-behaved, and the restaurant was wonderful to us--food also incredible. Olivia loved the live jazz trio and I taught her how to skat. It cracks her up--but she is pretty good at imitating me.

CCD and I have been researching vacations (to keep our sanity and hope alilve) but we both agreed today that we would feel bad asking anyone to take care of our kids (ha!)---at least until Lucas gets this sleep patterns under control. So then we started looking at family vacations--then we looked at family airfare---then we stopped looking at vacations and went back to work. HA!

More to come---I didn't even tell you about my car accident. We just got our car, "The Milk Truck" back this week.