Best Things in Life

We've had a rough week around here, in the health category. I blogged last Friday that we found out Hunter had impetigo. Since then we've been going nonstop - impetigo won't slow us down. We spent last Saturday afternoon at a birthday party and then all night at a friend's house. Sunday we had goings-on at church as usual. Monday we had a rare cookout night with Jenn and Matt and kids. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday I was pumping out mystery shops like mad, Wednesday and Thursday nights we had church, and of course that doesn't include all the "normal" things like playing with kids, shopping, working from home, housework, spending time with the hubby and sleeping! I know you know what I'm talking about!

So it pretty well threw me for a loop when I came home from Bible study Thursday night and Stephen told me Brianna was running a fever and her throat was swollen, red, and had white bumps on it. He was sure it was strep.

I might be the worst mom ever but the first thing I thought was, "Oh my gosh, I am working all day at The Classy Paci tomorrow. How is this going to affect me?" Obviously right after that I started fretting about her. I've never known the symptoms and signs of strep, but I do know it's been going around. We decided to check her out in the morning and see how she was feeling.

When she woke up on Friday she was totally miserable. Her throat looked terrible and she just cried all morning long. She couldn't eat, drink, or swallow. Add in the fact that she's 3 years old and never had a sore throat like that before and she was just utterly cranky! Thankfully, my friend Allison who owns The Classy Paci has two kids herself, and understands situations like this. I skipped out on work and took Brianna to the earliest afternoon appointment possible.

I have to tell you, I was not shocked or dismayed to find out she has hand, foot and mouth disease. Thank GOD not strep!!

The reason I laughed somewhat hysterically when the doctor diagnosed her with that is because just within our family, in the last two weeks both my nephews (Evan and Kaleb) had hand, foot and mouth (plus several of my sister's friend's children), and not only Hunter and Kaleb got impetigo, but also my brother-in-law Scott got hand, foot and mouth!! So was I surprised? Heck, no. I was just relieved it wasn't strep!

So Brianna is totally miserable. She won't eat anything really because everything hurts. She's subsided on yogurt and popsicles mainly, although she got down broccoli last night and practically a whole bag of potato chips tonight. Oh, and plenty of chocolate chip cookies. When your kid isn't eating well, you pretty much let them eat anything that sounds good, as long as it's got plenty of calories!

So this has led to several days of tantrums. She's been tired, but not sleeping. No naps. Sleeping at night but not through the night. Thirsty but it hurts to drink. Hungry but it hurts to eat. And absolutely nothing I do is right. She's just plain cranky. It helps to know why she's cranky - she's not just trying to be completely rude, but it's still really hard at times to take a deep breath and talk to her in a soothing tone.

All of that is background story. To say that it's been a rough week. I've been doing really well with being patient with her these past few days when she's felt the worst (it's something that God and I have been talking about a lot over the past year and I almost think I'm getting the hang of this patience thing) but I will say I've been taking a lot of deep breaths this evening trying to put her down for bed.

Side note - why do children always procrastinate going to bed even more when they're tired? When I'm tired I. Want. To. Sleep. Let me sleep! PLEASE let me go to bed when I'm tired! Who in their right mind PUTS OFF going to bed!?!? Anyway. I digress.

We got upstairs tonight and even though it was really late and she was cranky I told her we could read her new Fancy Nancy library book. A lot of times when it's so late and she's got an attitude she isn't allowed to have bedtime stories, but I just felt like this would calm her down.

After her story I turned out the lights and laid down next to her. And she sighed, and said, "Let's go to sleep, dear." She patted my cheek and said, "Oh, I love you Mom." She rolled back and forth and back and forth (she can NEVER get comfortable!) and she sighed again and said, "I like you Mom." We prayed and asked God to heal her sore throat and thanked him for healing her fever. She kissed my cheek and said, "I love kissing you, Mom." She laid on her back and said, "Today when you wasn't here I missed you. I love being with you."

And as I walked out of the room she said, as if it was an afterthought, "Oh Mom, I just love you so much."

Thank you, God, for the moments like this that warm my heart and make me forget every miserable thing from the past few days. It will make it so much easier to be patient with her tomorrow when she is stomping her foot and pooching her lower lip out at me with her arms crossed over her chest.