FIRE SORES

Eating mallows like a boss because he can.

Bear. Brute. Bully. These are all names that I use when talking about and sometimes, to, the baby as of late. He is 18 months old and he has many opinions about things. And mostly, his opinion is that he get exactly what he wants whenever he wants it. It’s as simple as that.

He does a lot of grunting. A lot of screaming. A lot of walking around with his hands up begging someone to save him from the apparent terror that exists in having to walk around at his eye level. And he also does a fair amount of pushing, shoving, and the like. Like I said, he’s a brute. My day is made up of many moments of redirection, the word no, and also, a good bit of laughter. Because usually, I find his antics funny. Until last Tuesday.

Last Tuesday, the brute turned into a jerk. A completely inconsolable, crabtastic, jerk. And there was little to be done to assuage his jerky ways. And so, I thought, teeth.

Always blame the teeth. I do. I always figure that if the kid is a little warm-ish, a lottle jerky, runny nosey, and is generally just not as much fun as usual and they do not yet have a mouth full of pearly whites than teeth must be the culprit. Much of the reason that baby teeth and I hate each other. Baby teeth are my arch nemeses. I despise them. Adult teeth, I love. And am very fond of. But the teeth of the baby variety, well, they can pretty much kiss my grits.

So yeah, teeth… seemed like a logical beast to blame. Until the crabbiness got intolerable for the rest of us. Like OOC. And night waking began to become every other hour. And by Thursday, I was starting to wonder if maybe the littlest beast had a little bug.

And then I saw it. Thursday night, before bedtime, I noticed a small little red bump on the inside of his lip. Immediately my mind scanned all of my recent convos with friends who had had under the weather ones, added in the fact that we’d spent the week prior at VBS with a hundred little carrier monkeys and BINGO: Hand. Foot. And. Mouth.

GRRRRRRnoBOOOOOOHissssssssGrossAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK!!!

I flashed back to the time that the doc delivered a diagnosis of HFM on the oldest. Never having heard of it, I thought she meant foot and mouth and appropriately responded, “I don’t think he’s ever eaten his feces, has recently been in a contaminated truck, or has eaten infected meat.” Turns out, he also wasn’t a cow. So she explained that hand foot and mouth {which henceforth shall instead be called Fire Sores} is a virus that is highly contagious through saliva and that it causes sores in the mouth, and red spots on the feet, mouth, and buttox {also, I think buttox is about the funniest word in existence and only like to say it in a sort of English accent.}. Not everyone gets the dots on their limbs, trunk, and bum. And not everyone gets a fever. But if there is a fever, once it’s gone, the mouth sores are no longer contagious. That’s the brief synopsis for ya. I am not WebMD. You’ll have to ask Siri if you want further deets.

Ahfter seeing possible evidence of FIRE SORES on his inner lip, I played the radio call-in game and snagged an appointment at the doc’s office. Mostly because I like to expose all three of my children to sick germs whenever possible. And also because I am pretty certain that the baby slobbers on each person in our house one million two hundred twenty-two thousand times a day. Which means we’ve alllllll been exposed and grossed on.

I unloaded my gaggle, they played briefly in the germzone, and soon enough, we were chattin’ it up with the doc. And BOOM. Diagnosis: FIRE SORES. Three to five day gestation {shoot me in the face}. Ibuprofen as needed. Do not swap spit with the infected. And do not even pretend to not give the patient every single thing he wants. ASAP.

He was on a steady diet of popsicles for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And a few more for good measure. Otherwise he’d scream in my face and spit on me and I really wanted to steer clear of FIRE SORES. And of course, extra holding {because he isn’t already held most of the day. Ahem}, snuggling, and giving in.

And finally {I say finally like it’s been years} he seems back to his regular brutey self. Last night was the first night he wasn’t a complete ogre at bedtime in the last week. And he’s stopped demanding that I stand and feed him popsicles while waving him with a palm leaf as he sits in his throne. These are all steps in the right direction.

I am crossing my fingers that with H being the babe, I will not have to deal with FIRE SORES again. Except for the fact that the middlest may have stated, “my mouth hurts” at lunch today. And the oldest may have had me examine what I diagnosed as a “canker sore” as well. What they don’t know won’t hurt them, right? Besides, there’s not a thing I can do to make it go away quicker. Right?

So FIRE SORES. Apparently, they’re rampant in O-town right now. Here’s hoping no one from here snags your sippy, spits in your direction, or lays a big wet one on ya. Here’s hoping.