It's been awhile . . . .

And there's a good reason for that . . . actually there are a few good reasons. Life has been more than a little crazy at our house.
Rewind to President's Day. We had recently returned from a mini vacation to Boise. The day previous, Sunday, Enoch had been really sleepy during church, and after church I took a nap with him. When I woke up, he was still resting but he was really warm and his breathing was unusually fast. When he woke up I could tell better that his breathing was labored. I was immediately concerned when I woke up, but David was not. Enoch did improve after a few really productive coughing spells, but his improvement wasn't so great as to make me dismiss my concern; he was also lethargic. I decided that in addition to propping his mattress at an angle, and sleeping with him during the night I would take him to the doctor the next day if he had not significantly improved.
In the morning, I didn't feel satisfied. I called the clinic as soon as it was open, and got an appointment mid-morning. David thought it was unnecessary, but I didn't feel good about it and figured that since we have insurance I was willing to have him looked at for the small price of a co-pay to have some peace of mind.
The doctor agreed with me about his breathing being too labored, and his lungs sounded "junky". His oxygen saturation levels were low, too. She recommended a trip to the hospital, thinking it was not unlikely that we'd be able to go home that night. After a brief stop at home, I headed to the hospital with Enoch.
We weren't there too long before it became clear that this was going to be at least an overnight stay; he was diagnosed with RSV. Not a big deal for adults and children over three, but potentially deadly for toddlers and babies. David came with our home teacher, our kids, and pj's for me. David and our home teacher gave Enoch a blessing. And David acknowledged to me that he had been telling everyone that he was "the mean one" and had discouraged me from taking Enoch to the doctor. hahaha Not true. He's not mean at all. We are both pretty laid back parents, but I had a very distinct feeling of unease and I couldn't ignore it. The doctor and the nurse said it was my mother's intuition. I call it the Holy Ghost. Anyway, we were admitted Monday and weren't discharged until late Thursday afternoon.
Friday morning I got a call from Dietrich's school: he had just thrown up. I ditched my plan to swim laps and went to pick up my son. He continued throwing up periodically until lunchtime. He said he felt hungry at that point, so I cautiously fed him some saltines and Powerade (not together :). It was no problem, and in fact he was stable for the rest of the day. Phew! Less than a 12 hour stomach flu. How fortunate.
The following Monday I could tell that I was probably getting sick now. But I was over tired, so I rather expected some kind of cold. It didn't seem like a big deal until Tuesday afternoon. I was wiped out. I felt feverish and yet chilled, my throat burned, and I was just completely exhausted. I let Netflix take care of my children that day. I took Tylenol as often as the directions allowed. That in and of itself is completely unusual for me.
I went to bed early that night, didn't exercise the next morning, took some Tylenol, once again let Netflix take over. Eventually I was basically functional, but still not great. My throat still hurt a lot. I went to David's work to drop something off to him, and I had him look at my tonsils - mostly because I thought the enormous size was amusing. His take was a little different, "Oh my gosh! One of them is taking up half of your mouth! I think you'd better have someone look at that." Hmm. So after saying goodbye I immediately called the clinic and managed to get an appointment late that afternoon. I had a r.s. presidency meeting, and I showed my friends my tonsils - mostly so they could take a picture. One of my friends said I probably had strep. I had never had strep before, and it seemed like people who had strep typically got it more than once. I didn't think it was likely.
Fast forward a couple of hours to my appointment. The nurse commented about the enormous size of my tonsils as she swabbed them. Came back a few minutes later. "Positive for strep. The test changed color almost immediately!" So I got a shot of antibiotics in the hip, went to claim my children back from my friend who watched them for me and went home. I'm feeling much better, thanks. :)
Meanwhile around this same time my husband pointed out to me some sores on Dietrich's skin. I thought it was probably just infected skin from scratching too much; he has eczema. Put neosporin on it, and see how it goes. I was too tired to think about it much. I'm pretty sure David mentioned it either Monday or Tuesday, and I was mentally exhausted even considering the possibility that he had something unusual going on with his skin. A couple of days passed and more of those sores showed up. Maybe it's a virus, and it's just showing up in new spots because he scratches everywhere, was our next thought. Sounded plausible. But after a couple of more days we decided somebody should look at it - more specifically, a doctor.
I tried to get him an appointment yesterday, but I called too late in the morning and there was no time available. We made an appointment for today. About an hour before his appointment the school called. His teacher had noticed some sores on him and thought maybe he had chicken pox. We had considered that, but dismissed it because he wasn't feverish, wasn't more itchy than usual, and because the spots didn't show up all at once. They looked like pimples, and then like blisters, and then they'd scab over. That would have been our clue, except for the fact that he was scratching - of course, they'd open up and then scab over if they were scratched!
So we saw the doctor, and even though she's a younger doctor and hasn't seen many cases of chicken pox she was pretty confident that this was chicken pox. And the only place he could have picked it up is school. He's been at school for a week already, with us thinking it was something else and me being in denial because I felt awful and didn't want to deal with one more thing. But, this is a short week because of parent/teacher conferences, so I brought him home anyway without the doctor ordering that. He'll miss tomorrow, too, but then the school week will be over. It should be better by next week. At least he's not uncomfortable. Like, not even a little.
By the way, he has been vaccinated for chicken pox. So has Kate. Enoch has not. I really hope he doesn't get it. Poor baby has had to deal with a lot lately. But if he does, it's not supposed to be as miserable for babies as for older kids. That's what they say.
Those are some decent excuses for letting a lot of things slide, don't you think? I'm trying not to take advantage and offer them as excuses for everything, but I'd say they're pretty valid. Ha!