Four-thirty am this morning, I am blissfully drooling into my pillow, probably snoring, too, and Sunny comes padding into the room, and I vaguely hear BigDaddyFish pull her up into our bed with us. This isn't an unusual occurrence, so I really pay no attention and try to get back to the dream I was in, which at this point I don't even remember. The two talk a bit about sippy cups and dollies and animals, and I tune them out. A few minutes later, BDF says, "Mommy? Baby has a raging fever." Okay, I'm awake now. I reach over with my built in therMOMeter (my wrist) and sure enough, she's boiling. We spend the next two hours interrogating her - "Does your throat hurt? Your mouth? Your ears? Your tummy? Your big toe? Your pancreas?" and trying to get her to take some advil, which she refuses. Finally, we all fall back to sleep. I sleep like a dead person.
At 8 am, my alarm begins to go off, but I have a highly trained reflex that causes me to fling my arm in the clock's general direction and hit the snooze alarm at least 3 times before my brain becomes aware that the damn clock is going off. I have to get up because the grocery delivery guy, who is never on time, is due to arrive between 9:30 am and 1:00 pm, and someone has to let him in. I am not in a hurry, however, because they are never on time. Never. Usually an hour or two late, and they only call about it maybe 2 times in 6. So I am futzing around, laying around, talking to Sunny about if anything hurts. She's clearly delirious, but cuddly, putting her hands on our faces and saying "I love you, mommy. I love you, daddy." Just like a little pint-sized drunk frat boy "I love you, man!"
The doorbell rings. Groceries are here. It's 9:18 am. Yup, the first time ever, they are early. BDF and I scramble into some presentable clothes, and I throw open a window to shout down that we'll be down in a minute. Luckily, Trout got up a little before 9, so she lets him in. Little Man appears on the stairs just as I get down to unload and check the order, saying "Mommy, my leg hurts."
He's got a quarter-sized welt on the side of his knee. It is swollen up like he's got some sort of weird tumor, and red. Our guess is spider bite. He denies that it itches, but says it hurts.
So, off to the pediatrician we go with both little ones. Trout gets to go play at a friend's house. So, are you ready? Can you guess? Of course you know.
Strep.
Thankfully, caught early. The doctor gave me a scrip for Little Man, too, so if he gets it we don't have to go back to the doctor and pay another copay to confirm what we already know. She also confirms that it is most likely a spider bite on his leg, and he should be fine, but watch for the development of super powers, such as web slinging and wall crawling. But poor Sunny is miserable. She's running a high fever, and is just laying around, and all she wants to do is cuddle. We are trying to be extra nice to her, making sure she has plenty of medicine, but also juice boxes and kitten stickers. She loves cats.
Now, because I'm the meanest mom on the planet, I don't care if everyone else in my house gets strep as long as I DON'T GET IT. My tonsils are the size of golf balls on a good day (they haven't been removed because all doctors claim I would get worse infections if they were taken out, that they are doing their job), and when I get strep they swell so that they touch. I can barely breathe when I have strep. Add this to 6 months pregnant and an allergy to penicillin, and I'll be pretty miserable. So pray it stays on the kid level of the house.
So, all of this before 10 am. Joy.
Going to go take a nap with Sunny.
Comments