Hand, foot, and mouth... oh my!

I know I've been slacking on this blog... it's a little thing called kids. And most recently, hand, foot, and mouth disease. Yep, we caught it. I thought maybe we would be able to skip that fun little part of childhood, but evidently not. Poor little Boo has been sick more in her short 7 months of life than Ethan has been in his slightly longer 27 months. (Tangent: I don't really ever refer to his age in months anymore. Does it bug you when parents still do that when their kids are, like, 33 months, 2 weeks, and 1 day? ;))

Anyway, back to M. She caught it bad. All over her little body. It started on her face (think eyelids, eyebrows, nostrils, cheeks), then her legs, then her arms. Finally it hit the diaper area, and that was the worst. I was like, chickenpox? By the time we got to the Dr., it had spread to her hands, feet, and mouth. So... duh. And actually, by the end of it, I wasn't sure if I should be relieved that it wasn't chickenpox, considering it seemed just as bad, but getting it once doesn't guarantee she won't ever get it again. I have friends whose kids have had it twice.

She spent a lot of time in the bathtub, nursing, and sucking on a mesh feeder of ice. And crying. Did I mention she was also cutting her two bottom teeth? Yeah, they were both through the day before I noticed the first spot on her face.

And yeah, Ethan caught it. Suffice to say, it was even worse for him. Yep. He's old enough to articulate that it hurts when he tried to chew, or when we wiped his bum. Boo-boo, owie, all that jazz. It was so sad. It was a rough week. And then a rough few more weeks while we waited for the sores and blisters to heal. They both still have some marks, especially in the diaper area, which I hope will fade with time. They also both still have peeling skin around where the blisters were on fingers and toes. Ethan calls them boo-boos and looks at them with concern and asks for kisses to make them better. I love that a simple kiss makes the problem go away :)

And here are a couple pics, because even when they're sick, they're cute ;)