The Plague, I mean Hand Foot Mouth

The moment I realized our Thanksgiving trip to Sacramento would be cancelled due to sickness was not one of my finest. 

We had been sick for nearly a month by that point--starting with the stomach flu and cycling through colds, pink eye, ear aches and anything other plague Ev decided to bring home from preschool--and I was trying so hard to be optimistic about our circumstances but to be honest the kid-induced house arrest was making me want to explode. "At least we're getting it all out of our system before Thanksgiving!" I would say with a smirk, and maybe some "Rah! Rah! Rah's!" for good measure because what I needed more than anything was a trip to Sac to visit with family and take a long, deep, these-are-my-people breath. But everyone had to be well in order to make that possible. 

Quinny spiked a fever on the Sunday night before Thanksgiving that couldn't be brought down, and then refused to eat or drink anything all day on Monday so I knew our trip would be delayed but still hoped a quick antibiotic would clear whatever infection was brewing in her baby body. But there was no infection, said our sweet doctor. It was a virus. A highly contagious virus. A yucky, horrible, "there are hundreds of blisters in your baby's throat, no wonder she won't eat" kind of virus. Quinn had hand, foot, mouth disease and we were not going to Sacramento.   

Quinn and I spent the rest of the day Monday and all day Tuesday crying in unison--her from a sore throat and me from a sore heart. By Tuesday night I was ordering a turkey and stuffing to be delivered to the LA Wiggy five and feeling so. darn. sad. But like my mom always says--take a deep breath, have a short cry and get to work. My short cry may have lasted a few days but then it was time to make Thanksgiving as magical as possible for my boys who were devastated that Sacramento was no longer on the table. More on our Thanksgiving week in another post, but by Wednesday night Everett had also broken out in blisters so it was a good thing we didn't go and spread the wealth with family. Even though it was lame!

Anyway, this was just a little post to explain my blog absence the past few weeks and to remind myself someday that mothering was/is the hardest job in the world and I should pat myself on the back. We are once again a healthy household and I'm just crossing my fingers and saying my prayers that it stays that way for a long, long time...at least through our Christmas trip to Sac. If you happen to have an extra finger to spare or if your knees aren't already too swollen from extended Heavenly talks a little mention of the Wigs would be greatly appreciated!

My first clue that something was really wrong was that she refused to sleep in her crib, instead insisting that I wrap her up like a burrito and cuddle her to my chest. She wasn't even a snuggler as a bitty baby so this was so novel and sweet but also a blaring siren that something was not right! On Monday right before I took her to the doctor she was so weak that I picked her up and she immediately fell asleep on my shoulder--that poor, poor little girl.

Other than those cuddles, our house mostly looked like this:

She was miserable, meaning the boys were miserable and basically the whole house felt pretty darn miserable. It took two whole weeks (plus a little) of house arrest before both kids were hand, foot, mouth free and I can't tell you how glad we are to get back to everyday life.

This silly smile is definitely something we missed and we are so, so glad our Quinny is back to herself again. Ridiculous blog catch-up is about to ensue, you've been warned!