That "Here It Comes" feeling

Yesterday, I went to put my arms around Kate while she was standing just outside the kitchen, and managed to solidly hit the bony side of my elbow against the archway. There was a split second before the electric pain hit in which I knew the pain was coming: just enough time to begin grimacing, and then WHAM.

Syd got sent home from day care on Tuesday with a low grade fever and an extremely puzzled report that she hadn’t touched her lunch. Her day care knows her well enough to know that this is not only out of character, it simply Does Not Happen.

She came home droopy and out of sorts. Yesterday she fell asleep at 10:30 a.m. flat on the basement floor and didn’t wake up until 2p. Oddly, she was also nearly silent throughout the day, gesturing for things or grunting for them–this seemed oddly retrograde from a kid whose language is exploding daily. Dosing her with ibuprofen seemed to help from the outside, and Syd has begun asking for “her medicine” pretty much every six hours on the dot, so we assume it must help from the inside, too.

Kate noticed a particularly raw spot on Syd’s tongue, which raised the specter of Hand, Foot and Mouth disease  (not hoof and mouth disease: that’s different) and lead us to check her hands and feet constantly. No marks.

Last night, though, she went down to sleep crying and woke up at 12:30 a.m. crying for “medicine” and then 1:15 a.m. crying for … well, it was hard to tell in the dark. She wanted her pacifier washed. She wanted me not to lie down on her blankets. She wanted the fan off … NO, ON. Her nightly stars ON… No, ON, ABBA. I tried soothing her, Kate tried taking her up to our bed while I blearily lay down on Syd’s bed, only to come back 20 minutes later declaring that co-sleeping upstairs was Not Working. Since Kate had to work today, I volunteered to stay with Syd in her bed and try to soothe her back to sleep. We both slept from around 3 until around 5:52, when a crashing thunderstorm woke everyone up and terrified Syd.

After putting Piper on the big yellow school bus in the pouring rain, Syd and I wound up going to the pediatrician, who looked at Syd’s throat and a mild pinprick rash, was very impressed by Syd’s willingness to pant like a dog, and confirmed what we’d suspected: it’s a virus, rest up and treat the symptoms. One cool trick we learned to ease the pain of the sore on her tongue was to give a half-a-teaspoon of liquid antacid (Maalox or the like). It apparently coats the sores and makes them less painful long enough to eat and drink something.

Anyhow, after being awake for 90 minutes in the middle of the night and then rousted early, I’ve been drinking coffee on a slow drip all day. Much like the elbow hit at the beginning, though, I am having a grimacing anticipation about the coming sleep deficit and resulting brain flop. I can feel it coming, and it’s not going to be fun.