Holiday Hiatus

So - we have had plans for about 4 months now to go see our NEW NIECE, Morgan Hull, over July 4 weekend!  Sweet Morgan was born a few weeks ago and we have been holding off going down to visit her because we had this trip planned for our long holiday weekend!  Well, Thursday comes and goes and everyone is fine except for a small sore on Parker's tongue, so we start to pack our bags (well our bags were still on our bedroom floor from the last trip we took a few weeks ago - so by "starting to pack our bags" I mean - I took a few things OUT of my bag from the last trip that had been sitting there.) before work on Friday.  Well, I go into school and as I hand a little baggy with Orajel (for the ulcer) and a straw (since that's the only way he'd drink anything) in it to the teacher explaining that we discovered a HORRIBLE ulcer on Park's tongue the night before an it had doubled in size overnight, she nods her head and says, "Oh no!  It's Hand Foot Mouth Disease. Kara was diagnosed with it yesterday afternoon."

Um.  Excuse me.  What?  Is?  That?

She explains the "disease" to me and I start to cry because Park had gotten a round of spankings and time outs the night before for not obeying and ignoring mommy and daddy and for throwing a fit at the kitchen table, etc.  How was I supposed to know he had some CRAZY virus?  Poor kid!

So - I leave him at day care (since we weren't TOTALLY sure that's what it was and I didn't think he had a fever) and I got to work and started researching.  HIGHLY contagious, and he had pretty much every symptom possible.  I call the nurses - a few times - then finally just decided to take him in instead of beating around the bush with the nurses.  I left work an hour after I got there and picked my little diseased man up from school.  If we were going to cancel our plans for our awesome 3 day weekend, I needed proof.  Well, it only took about 2 minutes for the doctor to say that's what it was and tell me what I already knew - there is nothing we can do for it except give him cold liquid things to eat and drink.  And yes -  He not only had the bad ulcer on his tongue that covered the entire left side of his tongue but also had spread to the top and bottom of his tongue, but he had small ulcers forming in the back of his throat and the "rash" had already begun forming on his hands, tush, and feet (thus the name hand foot mouth disease) SO - this meant no pool time, no time around ANY other kids for at least the next few days - or at least until he was fever free for 24 hours (I didn't even know he had a fever - cue Horrible Mommy moment # 8,287,348,928,374).

On the way home, we stopped to get him a chocolate milkshake from SmoothieDaze!  And later that night, he still wouldn't eat anything at home so we stopped and got him a smoothie for dinner!  It was the ONLY thing we could feed him for 2 days without him SCREAMING at the top of his lungs.  Poor baby :(

The rest of the weekend was spent trying to keep him happy.  One thing for sure is that if I were a SAHM, I would be about 3,000 lbs.  I did nothing except drink a gallon of milk, make goodies and lots of yummy meals that I devoured.  I made this cake on Saturday afternoon and let Parker help.  And since he helped I knew I couldn't pawn off any of the "diseased" cake to any friends so who was forced to eat the entire thing?  Hmmm - I'll let you guess.  There are MAYBE 2 pieces of cake left right now.... Shameful.  I just wanted to take a picture of Park next to it but when I went to the camera on my phone he snagged part of my stripe!  Then promptly threw it on the floor and then screamed for 5 minutes that his mouth hurt.  Even through all the crying, fits, tears and sad faces, I had a GREAT weekend with my little man.  

Sometimes being a SAHM doesn't seem so bad....  Hmmm.... a girl can dream, right?