travelling along

one expects 'ups' and 'downs' while travelling along life's path. here's ours for the past week.

last wednesday i'd just sat percy down in music class when my mobile rings. 'just ignore it' i think, knowing how much percy loves her music class. it rings again, immediately. hmmm, perhaps i ought answer it. paul is calling to let me know that percy's day care so far has five known cases of hand foot and mouth disease. i dash back to the mat, swoop percy up and as i bolt for the door, explain over my shoulder that this is likely what percy is suffering from. i trust that since she has only been at class for three minutes, she hasn't infected anyone else. (i learn later that hfm really needs bodily fluid swapping to transfer.)
thru the remainder of wednesday, thursday and friday (i stayed home from work thur and fri) little miss is miserable with lower half of body rash, blisters on her feet, ulcers on the roof of her mouth and her tongue, still a snotty nose and the general, icky "why me?!" feeling. it's good that the rash doesn't cover her entire body and the blisters aren't on her hands too. small consolation. she slept like crap, ending up in our bed every nite. poor paulie usually ending up on the lounge. i swear she also ate her body weight in yoghurt from wed to sunday. paul went to the supermarket on friday nite to get more. it's the only thing she would eat, i suppose it is soft, cool and doesn't require chewing. when we tried to offer her something else she would point over her shoulder (her highchair faces away from the kitchen) and plaintively ask for "yo yo." it was heart rendingly cute and sad at once. so rather than have her have nothing, we obliged. on the up side she can hold a spoon in one hand a tub or bowl of yoghurt in the other and feed herself! in fact she nearly invariably insists she does it by herself.

i don't mind having percy sleeping in our bed. she has been waking either around 10pm or 3am and wanting in. i still sleep quite well. paul doesn't do so well. we resolved that she must stay in her own bed. then we relented and did it again.
last nite after much pysche-ing up we said, 'she's well now, she doesn't need to come into our bed.' so when she woke at 10:06pm i comforted her and held her until she settled to rhythmic breathing, then i laid her in her cot and kept my hand on her back until i was confident she was sleeping. surprisingly, that only took 20 minutes. then again at 3ish we repeated the process, taking approximately 30 minutes. the positive being paul and i slept soundly in our bed, together! percy woke up happy at 7am. when she is in our bed she has been waking from 5:30am. maybe there's no connection. i'm conjecturing from limited examples.

the hfm was clearing by saturday, all evidence gone by sunday. we did skip swimming on saturday tho. it's still bloody freezing anyways! supposedly the indoor pool is heated to 30 degrees but we can't feel it. percy's blue and chattering after ten minutes of a 30 minute class.

sunday was a nice day. we went to the live green show at victoria park in the morning. there was a few interesting things there that i might follow up on. percy enjoyed her trip in the back pack like always. she did end up falling asleep in it around 11am. paul was happy to walk home carrying her, rather than catch the bus like we did on the way up, so she could get a decent doze in. she slept one sleep cylce of 40 minutes, waking just as we arrived home. i figured she would want/need another nap later in the day. not to be. unexpectedly she didn't have a major meltdown later. perhaps because she had both her parents to dote on her all day! so how come, if we were both there, i still got to change the poo nappies!?

back to work/day care on monday. being home with her yesterday and today has been easy. particularly today. even tho i was up twice in the nite i felt great this morning, getting up at 6:30am and fitting in a shower before percy woke. it's nice to shower without missy tearing the cabinet under the sink to pieces or dragging all her toys and books from her room into the ensuite. means less clearing away later.
i've also managed to pretty much catch up on all the household drudgery. blllrrgghhh, but it must be done. the floor is still ankle deep in cat hair tumbleweeds but i can ignore them until the cleaners come tomorrow.
i will empty the dishwasher while percy is sleeping tho.... ta ta