Sunday afternoon, Ava woke up from her nap with a very low fever. By 4:00 or so, it had climbed to 101.5. It sat there until 5:30 the next morning, when it broke on it's own. She had no other symptoms at all; no runny nose, cough, etc. I thought she was just teething and didn't give it another thought.
Yesterday, Alec's school called me to tell me that he was in the office crying and saying that he didn't feel good, so I went and picked him up. By 1:00, both Benji and Alec were on the couch with fevers around 101.5!
When I went to put Ava in the bathtub that night, I noticed that she had bumps on the bottoms of her feet. She had been outside barefoot, so I thought maybe she had walked in something that irritated her and just ignored it.
Today after lunch, the boys were feeling pretty much better, also with no other symptoms just like Ava. We were at my mom's house and I took off Ava's shoes to show her the bumps on her feet and noticed that they were worse, and she also had a couple tiny bumps around her mouth. We drove home, and by the time we got home, she had bumps all around her mouth, on her hands, and her toes were all bumpy and swollen, AND she had a rash all over her calves!
I don't usually freak out about the occasional "mystery rash", but I suddenly remembered that she had had that fever on Sunday, and the boys had had a fever last night. I went ahead and took her to our MD.
She so kindly informed us that Ava has "Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease", which is only a mild virus that is quite common in young children and only manifests in a short-lived rash, mildly itchy, and a low fever. She said that sometimes there will be blisters of it IN the mouth, and then the child might have trouble eating, but Tylenol usually does the trick.
She also told me that as long as Alec's fever was gone I could go ahead and send him to school, but that it was likely that he and Benji both have it also and their rashes just haven't shown up yet.
I'm treating their viruses with just typical stuff I'd give for a cold: Echinacea, lots of Calcium Lactate, several other immune building supplements from Standard Process, Vit. C, and colloidal silver (by Silver Biotics). I'm interested to see how fast Ava's rash subsides, using all of these natural anti-viral, immune support treatments, as apposed to just doing nothing like the doctor recommended.
Anyone else have experience with this virus?
Sadly, I don't have any "almost after" pictures to post of the front room. It is almost all primed, though. I still need to prime the ceiling (probably two coats) and wipe down and prime the trim. The trim will get painted the same color as the kitchen trim (it's called "Pot of Cream") and the walls will be the same color as the living room (it's called "Lyndhurst Shady Grove").
Marvin made some progress on the electrical stuff. He put in two new outlets to accommodate for the computer and moving my sewing table, and he's re-wiring as much as he can reach from this area in the basement like he does on any project. Our hope is that eventually the whole house will be re-wired from that scary old fabric coated stuff.
Even though we were working, we did have a nice weekend. We managed to balance work with taking time out to play. Marvin camped in the backyard Saturday night with the boys, with a bonfire and s'mores, and Monday we went to a big annual flea market in the town next to ours, looking for a bookcase and comfy chair for the front room.
I"ve been spending Ava's naps all week scraping the walls. There is the original plaster (a dirty cream-ish color), then a layer of new drywall mud (white), then a layer of primer (a dirty cream-ish color), then some of the adhesive paper (white) that is from the back of the wallpaper.
After about an hour or so, all those layers of dirty cream and white really start to blur together, not to mention the fact that I really do feel like I'm climbing the walls; I have to go up the ladder and spray DIF on the top part of the wall, come down the ladder and spray DIF on the bottom of the wall, go right back up the ladder and scrape what the DIF has loosened, and then go back down and scrape, etc. AHHHHHHHHHGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It's actually not really that bad, the wallpaper could have come off in coin-sized shreds, or we could have found 6 layers of wallpaper underneath, or some other equally horrifying sight! All in all, so far it's been one of our easiest projects.
I'm trying to get a coat of primer on today so we can hopefully start painting this weekend. I kind of forgot that Marvin has a tiny bit of electrical stuff to do, but I'm hoping that he'll be able to get the dusty bits out of the way so I can paint while he runs wires.
Maybe Tuesday I"ll have some "almost After" pictures to put up!
Today I was at a friend's house and noticed that as we were talking she was folding some laundry. I thought about it more later and realized that most of the time I was there, she was in constant motion, putting things away, etc.
Then I gave it some more thought and realized that most of the time when a friend drops by my house, I do the exact same thing.
I'm not sure what to make of this. Are we just so busy that we can't even take time out of our day to stand still and talk to a friend? Or is it that as moms, when we're at home we are basically at work and if someone drops by they are essentially interrupting our work day?
How do we balance the "need for speed" in dashing through our daily chores with the need for rest and gracious hospitality? Is it rude to work when a friend is visiting, or is it acceptable because it's a necessity?
Anyone have the answer?
Oh, and "friend whose house I was at earlier today", you know who you are. . .I"m absolutely not upset, I just saw you doing something that I always do and it made me take notice. Those of you who do come to my house, do you notice me not stopping?
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