What a mommy will do

My heart breaks when my girl is in pain. I don't like scrapes, I don't like head bumps, and I especially loathe hand, foot, & mouth disease!

Our introduction to the nastly little virus began on Thursday, with a letter home to parents on blue copy paper:

"Dear parents, We wish to inform you that a student in your child's class was diagnosed with hand, foot, & mouth disease this morning..."

OK, great. So we'll be super vigilant and keep an eye out for symptoms.

Friday night, Amelia was quite a little meanie. We held out hope... maybe it's just a cold? Saturday morning, Amelia slept in really late. We gloated about how lucky we were to get extra sleep that day. But on Sunday, we were greeted with red blisters when we looked in her mouth. And now there are blisters on her hands and bottom.

Hello, HFMD. You are not welcome here.

Amelia is in a lot of pain.
She is hungry, but cries if she drinks or eats. "My tongue hurts, Mommy! My tongue hurts!" My precious girl is in pain and there is nothing I can do to help her. She's too young to understand that we just need to wait. She wants Mommy and Daddy to fix it. And fix it now.

I wish I could.

Amelia slept for a couple hours initially last night. Then she woke up crying. Daddy got her back to sleep rather quickly, but an hour later we heard the sobs again. So, despite knowing I would be miserably uncomfortable all night, I grabbed a bunch of blankets and my pillows and camped out on her bedroom floor.

She kept crying. She kept whining. She kept repeating, "Mommy, my tongue hurts!". She would give in to sleep once in a while, but the sleep was fleeting each and every time.

Meanwhile, my hip hurt. My shoulder was throbbing. The ticking of Amelia's nightlight clock was driving me insane. I was getting a headache from lack of sleep. But I stayed. I tossed and turned on her floor, ready to assure her I was by her side should she cry again. And cry she did. Cried and cried and cried. From 1:00 a.m. until at least 4:00.

I think we slept for 90 minutes. We were awake again before 6:00 a.m. Now we're trying to go through our day, although Mommy is a zombie. It will, undoubtedly, be a cuddles & movies kind of day.

If Amelia cries again, I may need to cry with her.


(Working to grow my Google Connect followers - click on the followers box at the right to follow publicly. Thanks!)