103.8

I wish that number was the channel of Jonah's radio show, but it was his temperature Wednesday night through Friday.  Infant acetaminophen brought it down to a mild 102 for about 3 1/2 hours at a time, but there was always a spike between doses.  Last Friday, school had emailed home a notice that they had a "confirmed case of hand, foot and mouth disease."  Great.  Daddy and I had talked about keeping Jonah home on Monday, but where does that end?  The next kid gets sick and the room is now a hazard area for another week, etc.  So instead, Jonah stayed home on Thursday with Mommy and a temperature of 103.8.

After two days (and before the weekend), I finally called the doctor's office to get a professional opinion.  I was probably the most calm first-time Mom to call: "my son has a fever... I'm not worried, but I wanted your opinion if we should come in..."  The nurse didn't seem any more concerned than I was, so we were told to wait another day and add ibuprofen to his medication to keep the fever down.  His fever seemed to break Friday night (or was it the ibuprofen?), then rose to the 102s on Saturday.  This brings us to the grey area of a.) not really worried since the fever is down but b.) well into day 3 of fever.  We stuck with our gut, to keep him home, cool, rested and hydrated.  The medical professionals couldn't do much for a virus anyway.

Jonah handled it pretty well.  I took it as a good sign that he was still able to fuss and eat, but mostly he just wanted to be held.  Mommy selfishly enjoyed almost 4 days of snuggling and cuddle naps.  As he recovered a little, he was still too lethargic to play but got a little bored of books.  Mommy downloaded the PBS Kids app and let him watch videos!  (To those moms who pledge off TV entirely, don't judge!)  I don't want this to become habit, but it was a good distraction for a sick kid.  He liked to touch the screen and would jump to the next episode, so we never saw more than 3 min. of any one thing.

I'm not really up on my toddler television programming, but was pleased to see an animated Mr. Roger's spin-off, "Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood".  At first it seemed weird that Daniel, who lives in the world of make-believe, goes into his own dreamlike visions of make-believe... but admittedly, an animated kitten playing is less weird than a grown man with a model train running through his house.  For another show, someone came up with the idea to combine little boys' two most favorite things ever: "Dinosaur Train"!  I can imagine that was the extent of the sales pitch before it went on the air.

Jonah is back to normal temperature (though not completely himself) and I think he'll be back to school tomorrow.  No sign of sores on his hands, feet or mouth, so maybe we escaped that discomfort...