Invalids

Patrick is home with hand, foot and mouth. He actually must have had it last week, when he was seeming much more teary than normal, but never had a fever or anything. I do remember him saying at one point that his thumb hurt, but didn't think anything of it. Well, over the weekend, he started to complain that the soles of his feet were hurting him. I couldn't figure out what on earth he was talking about, until I noticed a few small patches of redness on his heels. They weren't spots yet, per se, but that's what gave me the idea to look at his hands, which were peeling slightly on the palms. Sigh. Yesterday the spots were more visable, and today they're even more so. The poor kid, he's OK when he's full of Tylenol, but when he's not, he literally crawls around on the floor rather than walk on his poor feet! I was torn about sending him to school today, because he's fine otherwise, but he practically threw a fit this morning about getting out of bed, and I knew the Tylenol wouldn't kick in before it was time to leave, and since it's raining they're not going to be able to do splash day at school anyway (which was already postponed from yesterday), so I decided to let him stay home again, with the promise that he wouldn't give me a problem about going tomorrow.

BUT, tomorrow is kindergarten promotion celebration day, and the kids are supposed to walk to a local park for lunch, play, and a ceremony. Parents are supposed to meet them there at the park with their lunches, but there's no way he's going to be able to walk that far on those feet. I mean, the Tylenol is good, but it would probably make it a lot worse later. I guess what I'll probably do is just keep him him home with me until it's time to go to the park, and drive us both over there, and then bring him home with me when it's over? I don't know what the school would say about that. Maybe I'll have to bring him to school in the morning, and then pick him up and drive him to the park, and then drive him back to the school. I guess I'd better contact his teacher and find out. Argh.

Josie has some spots on her midsection, too, although her feet and hands appear to be fine so far. She's gone to school, since she feels OK, and also because I'm pretty sure her teacher is the one who started this whole thing, so the other kids in her class have already been exposed, anyway. The afternoon teacher's twins had HFM a short time ago, and I'll bet anything she carried it into the school and that's where Josie got it, and then brought it home to Patrick. She's had it a few times before, and each time with fewer spots, so I'm hoping that this will be all she gets of it. I have a personal theory that HFM is the actual culprit a lot of the time when adults have a cold, because the seceral times that I've gotten it from the kids it's gotten lighter and lighter until I have very few spots, but still felt pretty crappy. I'm hoping that I won't get it this time, since if I do, I'll be feeling crappy right at the time I'm supposed to take Josie and her friend to Hershey next week.

The other 'invalid' of the day is Delilah, who just got home from her Appointment where, as AndreAnna put it yesterday when she was talking about her puppy, Phoebe, they reworked some of her Lady Bits. I put it in quotes, because she feels WAY TOO GOOD. Whatever that pain med is, it removes almost all her pain, so she feels just fine. This is a HUGE problem, because she's not supposed to jump on furniture, play with Baci, or run around. Needless to say, the second I saw her in the waiting room, she started jumping all around, and the first thing she did when she got home was jump on the couch and try to play wi th Baci, who is delighted that his puppy is home. ARGH. You know, if I'm supposed to keep her quiet because she's sick, it would be helpful if she actually FELT bad!! So, I think I'm not going to give her quite as much of the pain med as they prescribed, because I think that it's important for her to feel a *little* off. Otherwise, I'm going to have to tie them both to me, and we'll all be tied to the house.