Wouldn't You Know It

Although Henry is the one who went to bed on Christmas night with a low-grade fever, Amelia is the one who got us up at 1:30 AM.  She came into our room with complaints of a bad dream and when I went to soothe her, I noticed that she was on fire!

Sure enough, the thermometer read 101.7 so after some water and Tylenol, she fell asleep between Jason and I.  A few hours later, the vomiting began.  The poor girl was throwing up about every 45 minutes for 7 or so hours.  We tried to keep the the kids separated from each other, which proved pretty challenging. 

Around 10 AM, she finally started to perk up a bit and was able to keep small sips of water and Pedialyte down.  And she finally got some rest.  And although the fever was still sticking around by the evening, she was in much better spirits and actually had the energy and desire to play with a new toy or two.

The next morning, she woke up ready to break out her new Easy Bake Oven that she got for Christmas from Grandma and Papa.  As you can see in the picture, she was bright red!  I didn't think too much of it and after goofing around in the morning and enjoying some new toys, we headed to my parent's house in the afternoon.

By now, of course, both kids were acting completely fine!  Henry had been fever free since Christmas and Amelia seemed to be over whatever stomach bug she was fighting. Amelia got some much needed playtime with her cousins--Henry too--although he spent much of the time there napping.  See, Amelia looks back to normal, right?  No red face.  No vomiting.  No weird rash.  (Do you see where this is going?).

As the night went on, Amelia's face took on the same strange red-cheeked look as she had earlier in the day.  By the time we were heading home, she definitely felt feverish again.  By the time we got home, though, and she had changed into her pajamas, she was cool as could be with no red cheeks.  I started to think that it must have been my parent's warm basement or the fact that she was snuggled under a blanket with her cousins watching a movie that was causing these strange symptoms.

So what do we do the next day?  Head to the Magic House, of course! It was packed!  I have NEVER seen it so busy in my life.  I had to wait in line to get into the building itself!  Jason lasted about 20 minutes with Henry and then they had to leave to try and get Henry a nap in the car.

I didn't get many pictures.  Something about trying to keep an eye on your child in a crowd of 12,000 will do that to you.  I actually overheard a mother reviewing with her child what to do if a stranger in the crowd of people tries to take her away.  Sheesh!

Amelia enjoyed the new(er) nursery part, though.  I did too!

And there's my brother--being my brother. I believe he was pretending to be a mechanic looking over the check list of all that needs to be done to the car.  This is always a popular spot at the Magic House with my nephews!

And wouldn't you know it, as we were leaving the Magic House my mom makes the comment that Amelia feels warm.  And I think, "Of course she does, there are 30,000 people in this one room and she has been running around like a mad woman". 

So, to Steak-n-Shake we went.  I noticed that Amelia still isn't eating 100%, but I figured she will ease her way back into that when she feels like it.  We headed home and napped and you'll never guess who woke up with a fever!

The next morning I called the doctor, took her in, and she is immediately suspected of having strep throat.  A strep test quickly confirmed it!  I felt terrible for carting her all around town and exposing her to hundreds of kids--including my two nephews!  Ugh!  Luckily, after starting on the antibiotics, she was only contagious for 24 more hours and was well on the road to recovery just in time for Henry's birthday!