Should Mommy ever go to work ?

Alas, another day at home with my sweet, sickly child. I love all of the time we have gotten to spend together, but next time I get 3 consecutive days of one-to-one Elaina time, could she be healthy please ?

This morning, I called off work and called Nancy to let her know that she shouldn't expect Elaina today. About 4o minutes after my initial phone call, Nancy calls back to let me know that Luke, the petri -dish- of-everything- infectious-kid, now has Foot and Mouth Disease. (Same kid who had the chicken pox a few months ago !) Great ! One more thing to run by the doctor. I do love that Nancy is so incredibly cautious and was already using Clorox wipes to sanitize all of the toys and surface areas in the kids' playroom. Kids will be kids though, they're going to get germs somewhere, somehow when we least expect it. I just had really wanted for Elaina to be able to kick her cold without any more worries to top her off.

I called the doctor's office as soon as they opened and gave the rundown of events, including the threat of foot and mouth disease. They easily accomodated her and scheduled her appointment time only a few hours later. We barely waited this time and Dr. Joni was in to see us within 5 minutes. A far cry different from our last appointment; remember the 2 hour shot appointment ? Elaina whimpered and fussed when the doctor listened to her heart, checked in her ears and mouth. Yet, after she finished each test, Elaina said very sweetly, "Thankyou." To this, we both had to laugh.

All in all, Elaina has no visible signs of foot & mouth disease, yet she does have her first ear infection and plenty of crud left over from her cold. We were on our way with an antibiotic prescription and another fun day at home. We spent our third day together reading books and many intermissions to slide and be silly. Our day went well, especially after an afternoon nap and a dose of medicine.

One other party making out in all of this at-home time is Keegan. Elaina loves Keegan so much and gives him hugs before going night-night and sits next to him and reads him books. She will often get his "Baby" for him and stuff it right in his mouth. Luckily, Keegan still has Elaina to give him the attention that his mom and dad have diverted to his sister. Poor pup ! Here are some pictures of the buddies together. I'm thinking that Elaina was tallying up how many hairs Keegan has on his back and later, racked up his score. She estimated that he has approximately 86,453 hairs on his back and about 1,975 shed onto our floor !