Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease

It is REAL and Andrew has it!

And this breaks another week's silence on my blog.

Until this week, whenever I heard that disease mentioned, I mistakenly assumed it was some kind of joke about sticking one's foot in one's mouth too frequently or something.

Oh no, not so! For those of you not in the know, it is a moderately contagious viral infection that causes fever, and blisters in the mouth and on the hands and feet.

Only after he had complained of extremely painful chancre sores for 3 days and not eaten for almost one, did I bother to even look in his mouth. Oh MAN! He had more than 10 blisters. I felt terrible, of course, and took him to the doctor the next morning to confirm the diagnosis. Yep, that was it. He has been off school the rest of the week with Julia delivering his homework on a daily basis.

Which reminds me...It stinks to be wrong. Wrong to have not have taken my darling son's complaints seriously sooner. Wrong to have done something so DUMB again...read on.

Julia has been riding the bus home without Andrew this week, obviously. Today I hadn't gone anywhere all day so I hadn't put the garage door up and didn't happen to realize it until I heard the bus take off after not dropping her off. Immediately I knew and dashed for the door hoping she might catch sight of me and stop. But NO, not this bus driver. She means biz-nass and takes her job very seriously. If the door ain't up, the child don't get off the bus and that's all there is to it. Unfortunately I already had occasion to learn this lesson, LAST year...umm, a couple of times. In my defense one of those times she was clearly in the wrong, but she still called and left a threatening message on my voicemail reminding me of her absolute and supreme authority as a licensed bus driver to make my life miserable pretty much till Jesus comes back. But this time I knew I was wrong and my second-born child was trapped on a runaway bus with a mean bus driver who didn't care much for her mother...I had to save her.

I called the transportation department and got their voicemail. I stated that I was in fact home and needed to know where I might be able to retrieve my daughter. I called the school operator and got their voicemail. Voicemail was not going to save her, but I left the same message anyway before calling the elementary school and reaching a real person, who quick as a wink radioed the bus garage, who radioed the bus driver, who named a meeting place within a mile from my house. I left my diseased boy in charge of my loves-to-be-naked-always 3 year old and sped away to fetch the medium sized girl.

I approached the bus sheepishly, still trying to decide what tactic to take with her given our history. As she whipped the door open scowling down from her perch on high, I saw her draw in a breath as if in an attempt to sustain herself for the next 5 minutes in which she would proceed to verbally spank me AGAIN. Dangit! At that moment, I asked "WWJD?"...no, I didn't really, but I did decide to be humble and not cocky. And to be Christ-like, not Janelle-like. And doggone it, it worked! I even thanked her for not letting Julia off at her stop. And she was almost what some might call "nice" in response as she stated the importance of this policy and her high calling to enforce it.

When I returned home, naked girl was still naked...bending over sweeping up Pringle crumbs that she had spilled on the kitchen floor whilst I was away for those 4 minutes.

Another day in the life of a semi-sorta-stay-at-home mom.