Pink 'n Blue Make Two: Do I Look Sick To You?

You may remember from a previous post that we had chosen a daycare place for Emily. The big day was August 20th, as that was the day that Christa went back to school. Emily was not as excited about this as you might assume. You see, Emily, while she has spent time with her cousins Amy, Sarah, Jackie, Kaitie, & Chase, and her Aunt Sandy (Aunt S. for those of you keeping score), has had very limited time with other kids. In fact, with the exception of Chase, she really has never met anyone her own age. So Emily was very nervous to be meeting all these other kids. What if she wasn't the cutest? What if people didn't pay attention to her all day? Why weren't Mommy and Daddy there? We assured Emily that she would be the cutest one there. That while she may not be the center of attention all the time, that she would get it when she NEEDED it. That the whole point of being at daycare was that Mommy and Daddy wouldn't be there, but that she would make friends and have lots of fun.

So Emily began daycare, and she did not like it...at first. By the end of the first week she was starting to have some good days, and her teachers in the baby room began to comment on what a happy baby she was. She has gradually been getting used to having all these other kids around, though she still doesn't like it. She has had a few rough spots. On August 28th, while pulling herself up using a shelf, she lost her battle with gravity and bonked her head, for which she was given an ice pack and lots of TLC. Then on September 4th, while she was playing with a toy, one of her "friends" (the daycare place always refers to the other kids as her friends, this amuses me to no end) decided that they wanted that toy. When they grabbed it, Emily who is not one to be bullied, refused to let go, so her "friend" bit her on the wrist. Emily did not enjoy that as much as her "friend" thought she might, Emily received an ice pack and lots of TLC.

All of this leads me to the title of this particular blog entry. Emily up to this point, like I said before, has not been exposed to very many other kids. When you are not around little germ factories, you tend to stay pretty healthy, but you don't build up very many antibodies. Emily has been receiving a crash course in building antibodies. On August 31st, when we picked Emily up from daycare, they told us that she seemed to be getting a fever and had diarrhea. Emily did feel very warm, and when we took her temperature it was 100.3. Emily had a very rough night; she was having a lot of trouble sleeping due to her discomfort and her fever. Her diarrhea also continued through the night and she built up the mother of all diaper rashes, the kid was in agony. We took her to the doctor in the morning, on the 1st, and they confirmed that she was in fact sick, our little girl had Strep! They gave us a prescription for antibiotics and a recommendation for a special creme, to help relieve the diaper rash. Emily was just not herself all day on Saturday; Christa said her sparkle was not there, and she was right. We started giving the medicine right away and gave our little girl lots of hugs & smooches. By Sunday morning, her fever was mostly gone and her smile was back, that medicine worked quick (so did the diaper rash cream!). By Labor Day Monday, she was all over the place; her sparkle had returned. Tuesday, Christa brought her back to daycare and Emily was furious, at least while Mommy was still watching.

So we thought all was well, Emily was taking her medicine and seemed to be happy once again, aside from getting bitten by one of her "friends" on her first day back after being sick all weekend (as I mentioned before). On Friday, I received a call from daycare at 2:00 p.m. that Emily had been cranky all day long, didn't really want to eat much, had some marks on her face and hands, and was running a slight fever. They thought that she might have Hand, Foot & Mouth disease, as they had another child who already had it. So Grandpa B ran right over to pick her up, while Christa & I made our way over to their house and made yet another appointment with the doctor. When we were at the doctor's office they confirmed that she did in fact have a mild case of HFM, but that it was no big deal, once the fever broke. While we were playing with her, more specifically Christa, we discovered that Emily had a new TOOTH! This brings her total to three and prepares her better to defend herself when playing with popular toys and explains her crankiness & unwillingness to eat.

So here we are, yet again, one more blog closer to being current. I bet you thought this day would never come. I bet you thought there was no way we could churn out this many blogs in such a short period of time, well, you were wrong! Don't feel bad, it happens to most people from time to time. We will see you again soon.

In an attempt to cheer up our little girl, we hung her pink monkey around her neck. It did seem to help, as you can see.

After playing with her monkey for a little while, Emily began to get a little sleepy.

After having been on her antibiotics for a day, Emily was feeling much better. She was moving around and playing with her toys. (If only her jammies weren't so long!)

"Hey, Mommy, did you know there was a rubber ducky up here?"