I'm sure you've been wondering to yourself what new and exciting diseases my son has brought home from daycare recently. It looks like we went almost a month without a contagious infection, which feels like a win. He had an ear infection about 3 weeks ago, but the medicine actually worked and we were able to beat that one. Now hand foot and mouth (HFM) is going around his daycare and this week we've been playing a riveting game of "will he, won't he". They sent the first case home last Friday, which as of today I'm realizing that those parents are really the winners here because they're ahead of the curve and their kid is likely cured by today because it's been 7 days and that's typically how long this takes to move through the system. Two more kids showed symptoms on Monday and were confirmed on Tuesday by a doctor, so we've mostly just been waiting to see when this is going to pop up for RB, because we know it's more a matter of when and not if for him. Typically the incubation period seems to be about 5 to 7 days so what's done is done at this point. If he's got it, he's got it, and because it's viral there's really nothing to be done for it.
In the last few days, we've noticed some questionable bug bites on him and yesterday I decided we needed to take him to the doctor to have them looked at because two of them were swollen to a point where I was not super comfortable with their size. He's not really bothered by them. Honestly, RB is not really bothered by many things. He's either very tough or very unaware, but either way, I think his pain threshold is pretty high. He definitely gets that from his dad. Beau has always had a really high pain tolerance, at least from what I understand and from what I've seen. When we were younger, it was kind of like he always had a broken bone of some type, but it really didn't bother him. The only one that really got him was the broken tailbone, and I think he literally snapped the end of his tailbone on that one. Everything else was just I think for him a minor discomfort. It would seem that he's passed on the ability to deal with pain very well. I've not experienced a lot of pain in my life so I'm really not sure where my pain threshold sits. But I'm pretty confident that this kid did not get his toughness from me.
Anyway, so we decided to go to the doctor Thursday afternoon just for shits and giggles. It's been about a month since we've seen them, or I guess maybe two weeks because we had to go for a follow-up for his ears after his last ear infection. I really should just start measuring my life in doctor's visits instead of days. Like instead of being like "oh it's been 2 weeks since that happened", I instead could say "oh it's been two doctors visits since that happened". That's how often we are at the doctor. Between RB and me, it is a never-ending cycle of doctor visits here. I'm now at the point of my pregnancy where I have to see the doctor every week, which isn't bad, just annoying.
The doctor took a look at his bug bites and said that potentially the one on his elbow, which was the first to swell up, might have been from a spider because there's two punctures in it but it's hard to know and there were no other concerning signs like infection or anything, so she basically said keep on keeping on with what you're doing for that one, and I guess she said the same thing for the other one as well. He had a bite on his foot that was pretty swollen but we were pretty sure he had just been scratching it through the night and she agreed. As we're wrapping up the appointment, she said, "is there anything else that you would like for me to take a look at?" And I said, just for the fuck of it, "let's go ahead and take a look at his throat. Let's see what's going on in there," because his appetite has been lacking for the past few days. She looks in his throat and it's red! Ding ding ding, we have a winner! While she's looking in his throat, she also sees that he's got an ulcer forming in his mouth. Now if you've never dealt with hand foot and mouth, you are blissfully unaware that those are the two starting symptoms. I was not blissfully unaware of this information because I've spent the last week obsessively researching HFM. After that, she decided to go ahead and check his ears as well, because why the fuck not? And of course, he has an ear infection. Of course he does. It's part of our personalities now. The ear infection is likely entirely unrelated to HFM, other than it was potentially caused by an increase in mucus drainage. But really no telling because RB always has an ear infection. It's not a symptom of HFM though.
They did go ahead and test him for strep so we've confirmed it's definitely not strep. HFM is a virus so you have to let it run its course; there's no way to treat it other than treating the symptoms. We started around of antibiotics for the ear infection. We're on a pretty strong antibiotic for this one because we've been through so many antibiotics in the last few months for this, and they really don't like to repeat any in a certain time period, because the last thing they want to do is create a drug resistant strain. We've also been referred back to the ENT, so that's exciting. When I say exciting, I don't mean that. I am being facetious. Obviously we'll go because we really want our guy to be healthy.
Friday he was home with us and we monitored his HFM symptoms. We'll see if he's okay to go back to school on Monday. His attitude was up and down, but whose isn't? When he woke up this morning, he was really not super happy, which is very unlike him. We were pretty sure his throat was bothering him so Tylenol was first thing on the menu and that seemed to him improve his attitude, at least temporarily.
He was in and out of being fussy and being his normal self. He did absolutely rock my shit with a wooden car Friday afternoon. That was pretty upsetting. So if my face is bruised this week, it is absolutely because my son picked up a wooden car and slammed it into my cheekbone with full force. It's interesting balancing being nicer or more patient because he's sick and also still having to try to teach him that, no, we do not beat people up with blocks of wood. Like I don't want to snap and send him into a downward spiral because that's a lot more easily triggered now, but also you can't just hit somebody in the fucking face with a solid wood car.
I'm writing this blog with voice to text and I'm shocked it's not picking up on the whining in the background. Maybe it just is and it doesn't know how to type it into words.
I am extremely fucking pregnant right now. I'm 38 weeks. We took a family trip to the doctor's office which is 20 minutes away Friday morning. RB had to go with us for my appointment a few weeks ago too because daycare was closed for Easter, and that was an extra exciting appointment because that's when we did our final ultrasound to measure this baby's size and to make sure he was head down. Good news is he is headed down and he looks healthy. At that point, they estimated he weighed about 6 lb 6 oz, which is in the 62nd percentile. However, during my appointment, I leaned too far back and laid too flat for too long and ended up almost passing out, or maybe I did pass out. It's hard to recall. I just remember the doctor asking me if I could see his face on the screen, and I was like "no because I can't read an ultrasound because I'm not a doctor and it just looks like chaos in there, and also the edges of the world are getting fuzzy and I think I'm about to pass out." Then I remember sitting up and Beau was holding me so that I didn't flip off of the table and he was also holding RB, and RB was looking at me curiously trying to figure out what the heck was going on. It was a pretty exciting experience, but not exciting in like a fun cool way, just more like exciting as an abnormal. The baby looks good, did at that scan and has at our past two appointments since then. We'll see if we're about to birth another giant. I mean, granted, RB was not a giant at birth, but it did not take him long to achieve 90th percentile in weight, and we've been holding on to that medal for quite a while.
The next day
Well, I'm revisiting this from the following day. It's really hard for me to find both the will and the time to sit down and write a single blog in one day. I know I used to be the kind of person that could do that, but clearly that's no longer.
We are just living our best lives on this Saturday. RB definitely has hand foot and mouth. Super exciting. His rash started popping up this morning. We actually had a really rough night, which is atypical for him now. There was a while where, one or two nights a week, it was not abnormal for him to wake up and need help going back to sleep, but since we started sleep training, those are mostly memories. However last night he woke up around 11:00, and he was up on and off until around midnight. Then at midnight he just really started getting super upset so I gave him some Tylenol and some Pedialyte and we cuddled for 30 minutes or so in the dark. He was pleased as pie with that until I went to lay him back down and then he was super pissed. He really doesn't care for my explanations that both of us can't fit in his bed and I can't sleep in a chair sitting up and that I actually need to try to get some sleep now because I'm about to have a newborn. I don't want to say my kid lacks empathy but sometimes it just feels like my challenges are unimportant to him to put it mildly. I'm just kidding. I know my kid doesn't like empathy, I've seen him around other human beings and he definitely empathizes and cares about how other people feel. I think he cares about how I feel too, but in the totem pole of feelings, I think it's pretty typical that would toddlers, parents are not at top until they're mad.
He finally went back to sleep at 12:30 or so, but then he tossed and turned until about 1:00. At that point he finally settled into a deeper sleep. He slept until almost 8:00 this morning, which we weren't really surprised by because of how rough of a night he'd had, and then he got up and he was in a pretty good mood. Since then, he's had a little bit of breakfast, though not as much as he normally would have. RB continues to be a champion eater so that's how you know he really is not feeling good, when he has a less vivacious appetite. We've mostly just been playing in the living room. For us, right now, playing in the living room looks like me laying on the floor like a beached whale and him getting all of his toys out of his playpen and spreading them all over the house. It brings him joy, and we live by Sheryl Crow's words in this house.
Right now he's actively trying to break a bone, one of mine to be exact. It does vary whether it's his or mine that he's trying to break. He's turning into quite a little Daredevil. He's recently discovered that he can climb on an armchair that we put in his room. We took the rocker we had in there out and we put it in the nursery, and we replaced the chair in his room with a big green arm chair that belonged to his late Grandpa Rob, who I recently decided would likely go by Pops if he were able to be here now. That's what Beau called him when he got older and I really think RB would call him that too. I think that he'd be tickled to see how much RB likes the chair that's in his room. He's figured out he can climb up on the footstool, and then jump off of the footstool and onto his dad. Now in terms of who was more daredevil growing up between Beau and I, it was definitely Beau. It's kind of ironic now because I let RB learn lessons physically more than I would say Beau does. He will intervene in a risky situation much earlier than I will. I think that RB is more of a risk taker when his daddy is involved in the situation so that may just be it, that he's not taking as many risks when it's just the two of us. I definitely parent by the ideal "this is how we learn" whereas Beau offers chances to not learn the lesson, or he more tries to protect RB from his bad decisions, and then finally succumbs to the idea that RB is determined to learn whatever lesson that is. I mean don't get me wrong, I will definitely try to protect RB from his bad decisions, but between being as pregnant as I am and just general belief that this is honestly how we learn, if I know that there's a low chance of serious injury, I'll mostly just let it play out and see how it goes.
That paragraph kind of makes me sound like a monster. It started off with the intention of describing how RB was standing on my ankle bone and was trying to break that so he really wasn't trying to hurt himself, just trying to break me, as is his favorite pastime. At some point in the last 10 minutes, he's also walked by me and somehow dropped a bunch of drool on my head which is really uncool. And as I started this paragraph, he came over, gave me a hug, and then bit me which is wild and also he hasn't done that in a while. I'm very confused by the series of events. Maybe he heard me write that last paragraph and he thought "yeah, you do sound like a monster, and now I know it." I don't know.
Overall though, considering the latest daycare disease, ge's doing pretty well. We're about to make some lunch. It will absolutely be store-bought chicken nuggets. You're absolutely welcome to judge me if that's what you'd prefer.
As I'm editing this, I realize that my voice to text captured a very one-sided conversation I had with RB while I was typing this last paragraph, and I'm going to keep it in here. For context, here's the layout of the situation in the next paragraph: we have a window in our living room that we leave open for the dogs so they can go in and out of the backyard. RB likes to stand at this window and watch the doggies, and he is getting closer and closer to climbing out of it himself. We do have a fence around the pool so I'm not concerned about him getting into the pool, but the last thing we want for him to figure out that he can escape this house. He has already figured out how to open the interior and exterior doors, all of which had to have their door knobs replaced, and we're just constantly telling him that the window is for doggies only so that he don't go out of it. I've also found that it's easier to redirect RB's attention rather than just straight up tell him no, because he really could give a fuck if I don't want him going out that window. But he is happy to accommodate if I need a toy or something. But in this particular scenario, RB had been holding a car, and he threw it out the window.
Hey RB that's doggies only. RB that's not cool. I need you to get another toy. Get your truck. Because you threw that out of the window and now we can't get it, I need you to get your garbage truck. No, your garbage truck. I can't go out there and get it, that's for doggies only. Mommy can't go out there. It's for doggies only. It's doggies only, babe. I'll see I'll see if Daddy can get it when he comes back but, no, no.
That is hilarious and I will be leaving it in there. He did not climb out the window, but he did require physical intervention to stop him. He's actually trying it again right now as I talk to my phone. He's just really not brave enough to break the rules, but he really likes to poke against them and see how far he can push.
Anyway, as for us, we're just going to be here, fighting the sickness. I'm really hoping I don't catch it because I really do not want to give birth covered in HFM rash. I've only got about 2 weeks, so technically we're on baby watch right now. Wish us luck!
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