Hoof and Mouth Disease

Oh, the joys of having a child go to daycare.  Truly, the benefits far outweigh the negatives, but one thing I haven't enjoyed about Evie going to daycare is the exposure to germs.  Last Thursday morning, I knew she felt warm, but I figured it was a reaction to the 4 shots she'd gotten the day before.  Then I got a call from daycare around 10:30am saying that Evie had a fever of 102 which was too high for her to stay at school.  When I went to pick her up, the daycare director dropped the bomb that all of the other kids in Evie's class had been out most of the week with Hand-Foot-and-Mouth Disease and that she was afraid maybe it was Evie's turn.  Sure enough, after she woke up from her afternoon nap, I noticed some intense drooling and there were a few blisters on her tongue.  Yay...

So, Evie stayed home on Friday.  Friday was when she probably the most miserable.  She didn't really want to eat much other than ice cream or yogurt.  We even tried pudding and she wasn't too keen on that.  She was feverish and had a hard time sleeping and was just generally crabby.  And I don't blame her.  If you Google Hand-Foot-and-Mouth Disease (which we've been jokingly referring to as Hoof-and-Mouth Disease), you'll see how uncomfortable it looks.  The good thing is that Evie seems to have had a very minor case, even in comparison to her classmates.  Most of her classmates were out for four days, but by Saturday evening Evie seemed fine and was back to her chipper self on Sunday.

In other news, I took the opportunity to take Evie to the lake which is not too far from our house.  It has a small beach section, so we took her sand and water toys and played for a while on Friday as a bit of distraction from the HFMD.

 

Evie has added a new verbal expression to her repertoire: "Woof woof".  When she is eating breakfast we usually have the dogs outside and she can hear them barking.  After they bark, she'll say, "Woof woof."  She doesn't yet answer the question of "What does a doggie say," but soon she'll know.  She did an echo of a bird while we were at the beach too, which had me rolling.

I'm not sure if this change is from her new class at daycare or just observation, but she has now gotten to the point that she wants to have her own plate at meals.  So, when we're at home, we're able to set her little plastic plate in front of her and she's content to feed herself.  I'm glad her first instinct is no longer to pick up the plate to examine it, sending all of the food tumbling to the floor.  We've also made the change of pulling her high chair up to the table so that she's actually at the table with us rather than facing one of us.  That seems to help too.  She's turned into such a good eater (when she's not sick).

Evie will be getting her first haircut this weekend, which I'm kind of sad about, but it is time.  I just hope her little curls don't go away somehow.  I love these pictures from her bath a few nights ago, rocking the Elvis curl.