James went in to get Ethan this morning after we both slept in to 7am (we usually get up about 6.20). I was a little surprised that he wasn’t up already. He was still in bed, huddled in sweaty sheets with a fever of 102.5.

ARRRRGH!

Just to recap: Last Thursday his school called and reported he had a high fever. I hurried and got him and stayed home with him Friday. Took him to the doctor, who about wrecked her pants at how swollen his tonsils were. Took a rapid strep test, which turned out negative. Took a normal strep test. Results will take 3 days, so she put him on antibiotics. Monday came, test was NEGATIVE! So she said to stop the antibiotics.

And now, 1.5 days later, he’s down with a high fever again.

He was so miserable, was on the verge of tears. It was so sad.

So after the obligatory “Who stays home with him?” discussion, I stayed home with him, James took Jocelyn into school.

I called the doctor when it got to be a more reasonable hour (I decided 8:16 was reasonable. It was agony waiting til after 8:15) and she was stumped. She asked if there were any new symptoms, and honestly, it seemed like it was exactly what was going on last week. So I brought him in, and she took a look, and pretty much said, “Sure enough! He’s sick!” Well, she did say that the tonsilitis could be viral, but with his glands as swollen as they were, they needed antibiotics and broke out a prescription for the stronger stuff.

He was feeling much better once his fever was down. Better enough to point out ALL the RED trucks, construction trucks, and cars on the way to and from the doctor’s office. Better enough to insist on taking the stairs when departing the doctor’s office. Better enough to get all sassy with me 20 minutes into me trying to kill time in Target waiting for the prescription to be filled.

So back at home, things were going fine and he was actually sleeping and I was about to get some actual work done, when the kids’ school called.

Jocelyn was running full out in her classroom when she slipped or tripped or something shiny distracted her and she cracked her head against the “cubbies” (think very small cupboards with no doors, so the kid’s individual bins can go in and out).

The skin wasn’t broken, and she seemed to be doing fine, they reported, but I had better come get her.

“Do I need to take her to the emergency room?” I asked, trying to figure out just how bad it was.

“Her eyes are good, and she isn’t acting strangely, but really I wouldn’t want to make that decision for you.”

So I flew upstairs, put shoes on a barely conscious Ethan, grabbed keys and off we went. I shooshed Ethan a number of times while I tried to get a hold of our pediatrician (she had just seen us this morning. Patience of Job, that woman has. Yoda, I am not trying to be.) Left a message with her service, hung up and tried to listen to Ethan since he was doing so well with me snapping at him to “SSHHHH! I’M ON THE PHONE!”

“I saw a digger Mommy.”

“Oh yeah? A digger?”

“It’s a police digger.”

“I don’t think police have diggers, Ethan.”

“They do. Just one.”

“Aha. …. What does this police digger do?”

“Mommy, it’s digs. VERY FAST. With a SIREN.”

He didn’t limit his conversation to police diggers. I had told him Jocelyn got a bonk on the head. He did his best to reassure me:

“Did Jocelyn bonk her head?”

“Yes, she did, honey.”

“Very hard?”

“It was a pretty hard bonk, yes, but she’s ok.”

“I think she bonked her head so hard that it opened up and all the blood came out all over.”

He’s not the best comforter.

The doctor told me that it’s ok to let her drink and eat, and give her some tylenol for the headache she’s bound to have. I’m to watch for any abnormal behavior, wooziness, vomiting, extreme sleepiness.

If I didn’t know any better, I’d say the woozy nausea I felt all the way to school meant I had a good bonk on the head.

She was doing fine when we got there. The teachers said that it was definitely a hard bump though, it was LOUD, and it was VERY swollen pretty quickly. In the time it took for me to get there however, it had improved quite a bit. She wasn’t crying or fussing, she was happy as a clam, holding up her ice pack to her head, sitting in the chair swinging her legs back and forth.

It’s now been almost 4 hours from the head bonking and she is still fine, though her head looks nasty. she’s spent this time refusing to eat the dinner I made (very normal), taking her diaper off and insisting that I put it back on fourteen zillion times, annoying her brother by LOOKING AT HIS GEOTRAX TRAIN and tryig to send her mother to an early grave via cardiac arrest by spinning around and around and falling down narrowly missing even more furniture.
I still feel woozy and nauseas. Fifteen more minutes.. and there’s a stiff martini with my name on it. I’m sure alcohol will help the parent trauma.