The title sentence, spoken yesterday by Elise to Andrew in her best, caring-Mom voice, encapsulated just how much fun this week has been. HFMD, described in the previous post, turned Andrew into a wailing, snot-drenched knot of misery this week. Starting Monday, he couldn’t eat much and he didn’t sleep for more than 60 minutes at a time. Of course, neither did we.
In context, the directive makes sense. We use chocolate milk as the masking agent for Tylenol, and a milkshake was an expedient choice for getting som calories into him. He turned the corner today and was able to play a little bit with Grandma and Grandpa. As I write this he’s snoozing comfortably. Maggie has not exhibited any symptoms yet, and we desperately hope it stays that way.
Monthly Archives: July 2005
Decker Street Infirmary
Looks like we have been hit with the local hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) epidemic that recently swept through his preschool. Andrew spiked a high fever yesterday and has been pretty miserable since, though he has yet to display the characteristic palm and sole rash. So far, Maggie is not showing symptoms and we hope it stays that way. High fevers in infants usually get the full-court press from the nearest ER, which is not an experience I’m eager to undergo.
By the way, this is not to be confused with foot and mouth, which is actually worse (if you’re a cow) despite affecting fewer types of extremities. On a somewhat more random note, HFMD also lacks HMD’s menacing German name, Maul- und Klauenseuche. HFMD translates as Hand-Mund-Fu
Parenting by the seat of my pants
When I called Elise this afternoon to let her know I was coming home, she let me know that Andrew had, in the course of running around the house, knocked over one of the stereo speakers and broken it. I wasn’t terribly surprised, since kid-proofing the A/V rack has languished low on the “to do” list for quite a while now. Elise had addressed the situation in real time (she’s not exactly the “wait until your dad gets home” type), but I still felt obligated to Say Something.
Wikipedia does it again
Vectored from John Udell’s blog (if he pimps screencasts one more time, I just might…unsubscribe): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_metal_umlaut
I not only like the content of this entry, I admire the way that multiple (presumably unrelated) people can adopt a deadpan academic style to write about a totally ridiculous subject. This encourages me to explore Wikipedia for more comedy gold.
Managing blog overload
This entry from Myke’s Weblog: Too Many Great Blogs: Information Overload (vectored by David St. Lawrence of Ripples) mentions an issue that has also crossed my mind: for a blog that posts content on many different topics, how can we allow a reader to subscribe to only the topics of interest? This is especially relevant to bloggers such as myself, who tend to intermingle family content with the occasional general-interest post.