Motherhood seems to teach me something new every single week. Last week was no different.
The girls and I went to Knoxville last week for a few days. It’s always nice to have a little extra help with the babies when Corey is working as much as he’s been working lately. Also, my friend, Shannon, was going to be in Gatlinburg teaching her workshop and we had made plans to grab dinner the night before. So Monday night with her was fun sipping on margaritas together and Tuesday I spent the day with my dear friend and family who was in town from Arizona. Then, Wednesday Charley woke up crying.
By that evening I was at our friend’s house who is a doctor with Charley who had yet to stop crying. Her temperature was at 103.4 and she was drooling like crazy. I was thinking she had gotten some type of awful virus while also teething (I really had no idea). Our friend was able to take a quick look in her ears (to rule out ear infections) and mouth and quickly determine that she had hand foot mouth disease. Her mouth was covered in blisters. Coooooovered. People, it was the saddest thing you’ve ever seen.
I had planned to spend Wednesday, Thursday and Friday working. My mom was ready to help with the girls as much as possible and I had a huge list of things that needed to get done (more on all that I was working on coming soon!). Instead, I did this:
While looking at this:
For three days.
It was bad. And, sad. She was so hungry, but couldn’t eat. We could not, no matter what, get her to drink any water. She was tired and restless and uncomfortable and just plain ol’ miserable. It was heartbreaking.
The only thing that kept her from being admitted to the hospital due to dehydration was her baba. She would drink milk from her baba so we went from “no more baba” to “Oh! You want another baba? Baba! You want another baba??! Okay!” I was so grateful for the baba. And, Elmo. The only two things that gave her comfort.
As I laid horizontal with Charley on top of me all day and all night I was reminded that all my girls need from me is me. That was freeing because it’s easy to get caught up in the doing. I’m not the type to try and pretend like I’m ever going to scrapbook or make creative crafts for every hour of the day. And, we really enjoy just sitting around and doing nothing, especially on the back porch which is where we spend a ton of our time. But still, I often feel like maybe I could do more. And, I know that’s not true, but it’s the hustle of being a mom and wanting to be the best mom possible that keeps us second guessing ourselves, I guess. But, my three days with her etched a tattoo on my brain. Just me. That’s all they need.
So, I was grateful for those days. She is such an independent little thing so I enjoyed spending so much intimate time with her and being able to just be there when she needed me the most.
Today is day 6 and she’s still a bit under the weather. She can at least eat a bit more and is drinking water in small sips. She has completely lost her voice probably from the sores in her throat paired with the incredible amounts of crying she did. But, she’s on the up and not having to hold her mouth quite so weird in order to not let the sores on her tongue touch the rest of her mouth …
With Corey being a critical care doctor he’s not dramatic about much, but with this he said if Lola gets HFM disease it will be a guaranteed hospital admittance. And, that would be miserable for us all.
We pretty much kept the girls totally separate those three days. My mom cared for Lola (night feedings and all) so that I could focus on just Charley. I would have DIED if I would have not been in Knoxville receiving all that extra help. Seriously. Dead I would be.
This week is going to be a busy one, but again I’m grateful for the lesson and open to what I’m sure to learn around the corner.
xo,
jc
p.s. Oh, did you say you want to see a picture of Lola? Why.. okay!
I mean, can you even stand that face (or those ears)??! That baby brings us so much joy which is a big relief from ol’ Betsy Buzz-kill…
If you wanna, follow me on Instagram (jess_cudzilo) where you can see the pics posted above including all the other pics I post daily of Charley and Lola and Lola and Charley together. Trust me, it’s exciting stuff.