Crazy Week

On top of having parent-teacher conferences (which are super stressful not only because you have to work 12 hour days but because it's stressful to talk to that many parents and I really miss the baby on those days), my mom is out for a visit which is great and then Mae Mae decided to get sick. Really sick.

She caught my cold. Of course, of all weeks for her to get sick, she gets sick on the one week where I can't stay home with her because of conferences. So on Wed night, I'm giving her her bath and I noticed a red, welty rash on her arm. Hmmmmmm, I think. She's running a low fever and has a cold, so maybe it's just a reaction to her clothes or something. I try not to worry about it and put her to sleep.

She's up many times during the night because of her cough anyway so when she woke up at 1am, I didn't think it was any big deal. The light was dim but I noticed something red on her face. I thought it was just a mark from her bed and I didn't want to turn on the light to investigate so I put her back to sleep.

Morning comes and I'm all ready for work as usual. I go in to get the baby up and I almost screamed when I saw her: she was covered head to toe in a horrible, red, raised, welty, itchy, bumpy rash. I had no idea what was wrong: did she have scarlet fever or fifth's disease or what? What the *&%*$ was wrong with my baby????

I called my principal and student teacher in hysterics telling them I would not be in today: I was going to take the baby straight to the doctor. The thing that worried me wasn't so much the rash but that she had a fever with it. I called a sub and got a doctors appointment. The whole time, Kevin and my mom were trying to tell me to calm down, that no one has ever died from a rash, (and deep down I knew that) but it was so scary looking! Maelin was just kicking and squealing away: she seemed a bit subdued, but nothing out of the ordinary.

Kevin went to work and mom and I went to the doctor. As soon as we got Maelin undressed, the doctor said, "Oh, look at her hives. Poor thing." It was just an extreme case of hives. Whew... then the doctor said she also has an ear infection and got her on antibiotics. Good thing we brought her in because she's such a happy little thing, I don't know that we would have brought her in for the ear infection because she wasn't really acting sick. The doctor said the hives were just her body's reaction to having the cold and just give her benadryl and oatmeal baths till they go away.

We went home and followed the advice and gave the little one her medicine and poor baby slept for a while. She was so tired. Her hives were already starting to look better by the time I left her with mom to go to conferences. As sad as I am that mom was here when Maelin was sick and Mom didn't get to see her at her best, I'm so lucky that I didn't have to take her to daycare while she was sick. I'm back at work this morning and I just talked to Nana: she and Maelin are watching Sesame Street and having her bottle and playing with Gizmo. They're having a grand old time.

So we've survived our first parent teacher conferences and our first ear infection. I love how everything hits at once: I wonder what will happen when report cards are due??? Or Thanksgiving? Or Christmas???