Illness.

E appears to have hand-foot-mouth disease. Quite an uncomfortable condition at the moment, but she's happily esconced in front of the tv watching the same Playhouse Disney programs that we watched earlier this morning. It will probably be a day spent like yesterday: watching tv and doing whatever she feels like doing just to try to minimize the discomfort.

Last night I started with a fever of my own. At first I thought it was the glass of wine I had that had me feeling off. But, as my mind started racing and I generally felt unwell, I checked the temperature and it was elevated. So, I started thinking about what that would mean for class on Thursday and decided that I'd have to work regardless. And, I'm basically right as rain this morning except for feeling like I have a cold starting. No problem.

E will be going to her grandparents' house tomorrow instead of daycare while I work. I do not usually consider this an option because they live 35-40 minutes in the opposite direction of where I work. Because I am teaching an afternoon class, it does not require me to wake E at an unheard of hour. And, I don't really want her to be at daycare while being ill. Her cousins have a calligraphy class after school and possibly even dance practice, so hopefully that will minimize their contact time with her. We don't need to be spreading our germs any more than necessary. I have an inkling that her aunt will probably skip dance practice though in order to watch her, so I'm trying not to feel guilty about that.

Trying to be patient Mommy but it doesn't always work. Especially with broken sleep, it reminded me of when she was a baby. I don't know if I was more patient then or just had no expectation that it would be different. Because she has sores in her mouth, her pacifier is not capable of pacifying. That would require sucking which is far too painful at the moment, so we went for a drive last night in order to drift off to sleep. When I mentioned a drive, we had to gather her wallet, a bee toy, her drink, and her pacifier in order to just get out the door. Those were her requests. We returned 30 minutes later with a sleeping child and bated breath that we could get her down on the futon without waking her. It was not entirely successful, but with a few more moments of holding her and disentangling myself from the sleepy little girl, we were down for about an hour before the next crying jag. I expect more of this for the next several days, but this is the stuff of memories. Unexpected drives, worries about fluid and food intake, and generally a lot more text messages about how she's doing and if I need anything.

Not all bad.