hand, foot and mouth. again.

yes, it's very true. we've been plagued again by the dreaded hand foot and mouth disease. 

it all started wednesday when owen woke up with a fever and by 11 am it was over 103 degrees. sad little rover. i did, however, love how much he loved to snuggle. and there wasn't a naughty bone in his body. that all changed as soon as the motrin hit his system :)

it was thursday morning that i noticed the blisters...oh no.

my neighbor called me that day because her darling little dolly had it too {it's been running rampant in corpus since may}. she asked about owen and i exclaimed to her all about how, "it's not as bad this time!" and "he doesn't even seem phased by it!" the joke was on me and i was eating crow by about 11 pm when our wonderful little sleeper had woken up 3 times already. then at 12:45 am he woke up completely hysterical and was in his crib trying to scratch his poor little itchy blistered toes. i had JUST gotten into bed, but luckily mike was awake studying anyway, so he loved on owen while i got out of bed and sped off in my silver-hot-lightning-fast minivan to our 24 hour walgreens to get some benadryl creme. by the time i got home, mike had calmed owen down so we lathered up his blisters, put on some socks and mike worked on getting him back to sleep because it was time for me to tackle the little sister's 2 am feeding. longest sentence ever? fitting, since it was the longest night ever.

dang. tired parents.

when mike's alarm went off the next morning i'm pretty sure we both felt like we had been hit by some kind of giant hand foot and mouth mack truck.

we're on day 4 and things are looking up. the blisters are still great in number, but he's back to his normal, busy little self and isn't slowed down in the least. we've been keeping him quarantined, but today we couldn't take it anymore so we ventured out to sam's. i'm pretty sure the lady behind us in line thought we had brought our son with leprosy to shop. we'll keep him home from church and away from his friends for a little while longer. our pediatrician told us to give him 3-5 days before he's not contagious. but i read on The Internet that as soon as their fever is gone, they aren't contagious. i also read on The Internet that they are contagious for 2 weeks. in other words, nobody knows and everybody likes to pretend they know. we're going to err on the side of caution.

when i talked to his pediatrician on the phone on thursday to confirm my diagnosis {i can diagnose anything. i have a WebMD app. i'm unstoppable.} she urged me to keep him away from abby as much as i could. that was so encouraging to hear...especially since 5 minutes before she called owen was "helping" to shove abigail's binky back in her mouth...with his blistery little paw. it's a good thing she's nursing...girlfriend needs all the antibodies she can get these days.

i have washed my hands about 398,402 times in the past 3 days.

mike had a family-fun dinner for work tonight so i sent him with abby while i stayed home with typhoid owen. they enjoyed mexican food on their father/daughter date while i enjoyed leftovers with my little sicky.

want to see what pathetic looks like?

isn't that a sad/disgusting little chubby hand?

lest you should think that stuff on his pointer finger is some kind of infectious ooze, rest assured - it's hummus.

a sad toe.

he didn't seem to get many inside his mouth this time, but he got lots around his mouth. but he's still found lots to smile about :)

his dinner tonight consisted of:

ham, hummus, black beans, corn, grapes and a few tostitos artisan black bean and garlic chips. i anticipate a very stinky sunday.

and then we took some pictures. just because.

 "peace out, hand foot and mouth"

on a not so disgusting note, "cold front season" has finally arrived. hip, hip! we've had a few days this week where the high was 70 and it gets into the 50's at night. i like to call that, "open window weather." while it's wonderful during the day, even when i close the windows at night, it gets fairly chilly in the house and i wake to find my babies with icicle hands. the solution? toasty jammy time. and maybe i turned the heater on tonight. it's "for the kids." i'll admit, i'm a wuss. this on the heels of telling mike last week that "i'd like the next place we move to be somewhere where it gets COLD!" if it gets colder than 50 degrees, we're up a creek.

is there anything better than a little toddler body in footy jams? how about a toddler body in footy jams trying to bridge the gap to climb on the dining room table.

if you've noticed a lack of owen photos lately, it's because they seem to all turn out like this these days.

he's not much for sitting still.

except when he's lounging in his sister's chair. i think he actually enjoys the bouncy seat more now than when he was an infant.

fantastic little footy jam bod.

 

 this is the face of a kid who had just shoved his finger into my belly button.

  one of our FAVORITE books is the belly button book (thanks knox!) and owen is constantly on the look out for belly buttons. no belly button is safe. today he pointed to abby's nipples and said his version of "belly button!" um, not quite, buddy.

he's become very curious about abby nursing and is even MORE curious about the breast pump. i have walked in on more than one occasion to find him with the breast pump shields held up to his tummy. he also found a nursing pad in my room and tried to stick it to his shirt. i'm sure mike is so pleased that his son is being raised by a milk maid. we make sure to go outside to catch lizards, eat dirt and wrestle daily to outweigh all the girl things he has to witness during the day.

speaking of milk maid...it's about that time. i'm hearing some not so lady like grunts coming from the other room that indicate blogging time is over and dinner is to be served :)

may the hand, foot and mouth never cross the threshold of your home and if it does may you experience the bliss that is liquid benadryl at naptime...