Fevers, Cough, & Cries---Aka, the Flu

Well, I fear I may be able to soon set my calendar by Maeve's getting sick. Aside from a case of Roseola when she was about six months old, she really never got sick until she hit a year. Then came Hand-Foot-and-Mouth and a month or so later, Croup, a month later some upper respiratory infection and now, here we are. About four weeks later we have ourselves the flu. Yippee! 

Playing peek-a-boo through a dog toy. 

She developed a cough around Sunday night, and a fever that started Monday and peaked at 104.7* last night. I consider myself a fairly competent and confident mama until my child is sick or bleeding. It drives Adam crazy. One time in particular she had hit her mouth on the tile at Target and was bleeding everywhere; the yin to my yang Adam remained calm and called the doctor (oh yeaaaah) while I kept exclaiming "Call one of our MOMS!!" Hey, they're the experts here, I just play one during the day. Anyhow, I took Miss Maeve in today and our suspicions were confirmed, we've got one miserably sick & contagious cutey. She still managed to charm the nurses and doctors, chatting them up while they checked her out. We've been really working on "No, thank you." instead of "NOOOO" followed by a swat. When she didn't want the nurses to look in her ears she kept saying "No tampk you, no tampk you!" while swatting them away. Eh, we're getting there.

 I was proud of myself for some mama creativity when it came to entertaining my wee one while keeping her at rest. (That girl and this mama can only do so many episodes of Sesame Street before we start to go mad.)  Yesterday after a particularly messy and unsuccessful lunch Maeve was covered in all manners of food and I was already praying for 5:30 to come at light speed. I stripped her down and enticed her up the stairs with promises of one of her favorites- a "bathff!" Once I got her in though, it occurred to me I could really stretch the time out by letting her enjoy the finger paints she got in her stocking, using the tub as a play-pen of sorts. I grabbed the paints out of our craft closet, squirted little primary colored piles around her toes and taped several pieces of paint-worthy paper against the side of the tub. 

It-was-magic! 

This kept her occupied FOREVER! I am so proud (perhaps too much so) to say this was not even a pinterest tip, and I will totally be using it again and again. When we (read, 'mama') were all done painting I simply peeled the tape off and stuck the paintings to the back of the door to dry, ran some water and wiped the tub down. Then, as promised, Maeve also got a long, cool, bath to drop her temperature that had creeped back up as we played. Which was good, because she covered herself pretty well in reds, blues and greens while playing finger-paint Picasso. 

Laughing at Dutchess trying to drink bath water. 

Where's Maeve?

Peek-a-Boo! Look at those sick little eyes. Poor, sweet baby!