Panic Button

The decision to place Ethan in daycare wasn't exactly unexpected. I HAD to go back to work, for finances and sanity reasons, and we would much rather have him in a childcare facility like the one he's in now instead of a home nanny. One of the biggest downfalls of daycare though is that the kids get sick with all sorts of stuff and it's so easy to pass it on. And man, that hit us hard last week... BIG TIME. Ethan had been sick before... colds, fever... he even caught the croup about a month ago. But this time, this "hands foot and mouth" disease sent me in circles searching for a panic button.

Poor thing was miserable for a little over a week. Sunday, we noticed that he was a little fussier than normal. Monday, other than the fussiness, he didn't really show anything out of the ordinary so Mike and I assumed that he was "just teething". Tuesday, he had a fever so Ic ouldn't bring him to daycare. He had also started to refuse the bottle and would only take a few ounces at a time, but still, as rookie diagosticians, we blamed it on swollen gums. By Wednesday, he was shivering with cold sweat with high fever and a blister on his finger... so daycare basically booted him out and said he couldn't come back until his fever was gone.

The worst part of it all was not being able to console Ethan. NOTHING worked. Not a bottle, not Tylenol, not the toys, not even mommy-holding-him-close-and-rocking-trick... which I thought (up to that point) always worked. He cried profusely with what sounded like severe pain, not the whining kind, and I felt guilty that I couldn't do anything to help. I feel even more guilty now because at one point,a fter waking up every hour of the night with constant crying, I actually got annoyed and yelled for him to stop. I got mad at a poor, crying baby who couldn't help that he's sick! What kind of mother am I??

The fact that Mike is temporarily rendered slightly "inoperative" when it comes to any baby duties (other than making faces) didn't help any. But in his defense, he did wake up several times during the crying spells, which (oddly) made me feel just a tad bit better knowing that I wasn't the only one losing sleep. This was definitely one of those times I realized how badly I want to be back near my family, so they could help me from going insane.

But he's all better now. Back to his usual ol' self.. and back in daycare where he'll likely catch the next strand of virus to get around. The only consolation I have is optimism that by the time he starts preschool, he should be immune from most of these common viruses and diseases... at least that's what I hope anyway.