Where to begin- do we start with the screaming and crying; the sleeplessness and the clingyness; the refusal to eat or lay down? Which one? Well, as it turns out, what everyone says about daycare is absolutely and completely true-- and that is that yes, your child will come home with a sickness from some other kid everyday, and yes, you will get it too. And yes, when your child goes back to school, it will happen again and again. Apparently the winter season in Northern Virginia is an amazing time for children to become sick and make every other person who is in a five mile radius of them sick as well, whether it's RSV, the common cold, a simple cough, sniffles, or, my personal favorite, Hand Foot and Mouth Disease.
Yes, my friends. Hand foot and mouth disease. Look it up if you are unfamiliar and I think your eyes may twitch and your stomach will most certainly churn. My parent friends will either nod and say yep, or they will be in horror knowing that it's possible that their child, too, will soon contract said disease. All of you who have viewed Dominic's photos on FB recently: BEWARE. I hear it can be contracted virtually. Kidding, but seriously, that's how I feel right about now.
So yes, there was a parent bringing their baby to school who, in my estimation, tamed a fever in order to bring said child to school so as not to miss work, and as things progressed, then decided to take baby to the doctor, and VOILA! She's already passed HFAMD to all of the lovely babies in class. Cool! Luckily, daddy was home to help me out for a couple of nights, but those few nights I spent watching Nick JR from 12AM until 3AM and then patting my son back to sleep as he kicked my arms, face, legs and belly until my alarm went off to get ready for work were really the kicker. It actually surprised me how capable I was of not sleeping all night long, and then picking up and working a long day, coming home to make dinner, relieve husband of baby duty so he could sleep before going in at midnight, just to do it over again. Long days were had by all, with Dominic eating an impressive 6-8oz of formula a day (not so impressive really), being in a constant state of discomfort and cry, wiggle, and sit, lay, sit, lay, swing lay sit swing kick arch, etc. You get the picture. For days. Until one morning, he woke up laughing and downed six ounces of milk for breakfast alone.
We had our baby back! On the same day we got baby back, we lost mommy. Me. This person typing. Yep. I now took on the task of the 102 fever, sweats, loss of appetite, swollen throat, ulcers, etc, that made living life fun. And I found myself feeling really sad that this is what my baby just went through. How unfair that my tiny, not even one year old, bitty happy son had to feel so horribly. Sleep was impossible because of the fever and the constant back and forth nature of the chills and the sweats. He had that!
Alas, we laugh in the face of daycare. Or it laughs when we arrive. Either way, it's what we've got. And hey, Dominic's immune system is just getting built up early so he can easily fight off viruses when he's older! However, parents, please do not use Tylenol and take your baby to school, insisting that your child hasn't had a fever before you dropped him off so you don't have to miss work, and then make EVERYONE else's kids sick and then everyone else's parents sick and then we all miss work. Do us all a favor, and we'll hit ya back with the same respect. Kthxbai!
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