Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease

Freda had it when she was a few months old. Mandy and I obviously have not had it. Freda must have brought it home from school. I had it last week and Mandy has it this week. It's horrible. Felt like I was walking on shards of broken glass for 4-5 days. And this, after 5-7 days of fever, loss of appetite, malaise, backache, thirst, night sweats, headache, was just over the top.

"Hand-foot-and-mouth disease is a mild, contagious viral infection common in young children. Characterized by sores in the mouth and a rash on the hands and feet, hand-foot-and-mouth disease is most commonly caused by a coxsackievirus."]

CDC Report on HFMD

You'll have to try harder than that to ruin our Dinsey vacation tho...

Critters in the night

So last night as little mini slept...

...I let Ajax out as I was going to bed, around mindnight. The second I open the door he sprints off growling after something. It's pitch black. I have no shoes. As I am calling him back he is snorting and gagging. I have heard this before. I turn to run inside to get ready for the cleanup. Mandy's been asleep for a couple hours at this point. I wake her [gently] and bring her up to speed. So she goes to the ack door to make sure he stays there. He wants in really bad. We have no tomato juice. I get on the internet and look up the solution. I find: 1 quart hydrogen peroxide 3%, 1/4 cup baking soda and a teaspoon of detergent [dawn]. we glove up and head outside and rinse him off. The smell was gone in less than 30 seconds. The hard part was doing his face. He took the brunt of it in the face so we had to put peroxide mixture close to his eye/nose/mouth which could not have been pleasant, especially after the outcome of biting that last thing in the butt. I pick him up and we rinse him off in the bathtub. mandy went back to bed, I closed down shop and followed her.

Hahahaha. When subject and object collide, an experience is born.

I can check that one off my list now. 

Bias or not, this kids cute!

Oh yeah...

If you didn't know, we are going to Disneyland on vacation. We were not going to take her there for a couple more years, but a friend of ours recently relocated to the bay area to work for PIXAR Studios. Owned by Disney, we got a deal we could not pass up. It's been a couple decades since both Mandy and I have been, so it will be be fun for all. 

Freda is excited to say the least. 

When life blows wide open

"I need a plane to dinsneyland poppy. Here's the chalk"

What mortgage? What blister? What job? What problem? What list? srsly.

When life gets in the way

We are alive. Probably more than we ever have been as individuals and a family.

A lot has gone on in the last few months. Freda was the flower girl at Uncle Tyler and Aunt Molly's wedding. She did great, we were so proud of her. She worked really hard and executed it perfectly. Daughter of an artist/engineer she systematically and precisely placed the flower petals in their appropriate spots. hahaha. It was cute and I wasn't not the only who thought that.

We've been busy with work and school and working on the house before the weather comes this fall. We have a lot of work we want to get done outside.

Fred and I got sick last week. It was horrible. Freda brought it home from school and then gave it to me. She threw up for half a day into the night. After the initial projectile bevy on the couch, i got her clothes off and got her in the bathroom and started the bath. (Good thing I locked the dogs up or they be all over that couch. Yuck but true dogs are gross like that.) As I turned around to grab a towel, she starts hurling in the tub. So hit the drain and we switch gears. Okay, a shower.

At this point a little hand grabs my elbow. I turn to her standing there naked, covered in puke from head to toe. She looks up at me with her wicked black eyes and says "Poppy, Thank you for taking care of me." Moments like like rival a 2x4 in the face.

We took turns staying up helping her through the dry heaves, in and out of passing out from exahustion. Nothing would stay down, even water. Finally subsided the next day but it took her a few days to be back into eating. Then I got it Sunday. Ouch. I either forgot how bad it hurts or this was a bad one, but oh man it was hard. My diaphragm and ribs hurt for almost a week. Things are back to normal.

She is very good at talking. She says things like "I'm bringin' the HEAT!" and "Hey mom, join the party! It's ouside!"

Lately, we've been taking time to consider the world through as many different perspectives as possible. This is really helping us remember that we all live in separate but equally important worlds. Utilizing these different world views in our everyday lives broadens your spectrum of consiousness and ethnocentric thinking. This is not the easy road. This is not for the simple minded. Sometimes you have to eat a bit of crow to transcend, and include. Stop seeing the difference.