Ups and Downs

I have just been through World War III at my house. It all started on Thursday night. Grace had a fever and woke up three times in a half sleeping/half awake consciousness. The next day she was complaining that her tummy hurt, her ears hurt and her mouth hurt. She wouldn't drink her milk (which she is obsessed with) and she barely had an appetite. Anything that did go down her throat was met with a cry and her holding her throat. My first thought was ear infection, then I thought she may be teething and then I didn't know what to think. About 5:30 in the afternoon I noticed little blisters on her hands and one in her mouth. I didn't panic about this symptom because I pretty much had it diagnosed: hand, foot mouth virus. My sister had it when she was a baby and my mom still likes to bring up this story every once in a while during our conversations about how I should take away Grace's pacifiers. I like to channel my inner doctor a lot so I was convinced about my diagnosis. And of course the website I was on said that there is nothing you can do for this virus except wait it out. On Friday night, I was up with her about 5 times! The next morning when she was up at 7:30 I thought for sure that we needed to go to the Dr. but, she woke up all chipper and cheerful. What?! Well, sometimes you just second guess your motherly instincts so we took a bike ride and it was during the bike ride that decided I better take her in after bouts of crying from the bike carrier (yes, I felt like a terrible mother after taking her for a bike ride).

Well, turns out I was right. I took her in at 2pm on Saturday and he confirmed the hand, foot, mouth virus. I was relieved that it was nothing more serious. So along with all the sleepless nights this past weekend and the dr. visit Grace decided to start asking "why". Grace, eat your melon. "Why?" Grace, lets clean up your markers. "Why?" Grace, time to get in the car. "Why?" Add to this the virus, lack of sleep (one hour naps or less for four days), tantrums (because of the lack of sleep), and the fact that I had to take her to work with me for two hours yesterday, and you have one frazzled mommy!

So I thought the worst was over, but it turns out that toddlers take a while to overcome a virus and even after the virus is gone, they are so used to mom and dad giving them anything they want when they are sick that they milk it for all it's worth and throw temper tantrums when they don't get everything they want (whew, that was a run on sentence!). And I mean all out, throw yourself on the floor tantrums for things like "no grace, you may not watch a video right now". She couldn't let it go! So we get around to bed time after a relatively peaceful afternoon (thank you Mom for a respite) and dinner that was actually very pleasant. I decide she needs to brush her teeth after a few days of not doing this due to the blisters in her mouth. I go to brush the bottom teeth and notice some food in her molars on the left side. What, molars plural??? Since when does Grace have two molars on the bottom left?? And that's when I add teething to the long list of ailments and struggles these past four days! Her bottom 2 year molars are halfway in and I never even noticed! Poor thing! Her mouth must have been in serious pain:( But despite feeling horrible for the past couple of days she didn't fail to keep me entertained and make me laugh a lot. Kids are amazing and teach us so much about patience, pain, and resilience. I love being a parent in spite of the fact that I wanted to pull my hair out many times during the last 72 hours.

I took these pics on Monday after I had turned my back for a few minutes

Yes, it was on her foot and up and down her leg:)

This was her "makeup"