Strep=Tummy Aches?

Wow, wow, wow. My past three weeks have been crazy! Do you ever have those moments when you look at your life and think, "I never would have expected this, it was not in my teenage day dreams when I was wishing I could be the adult."? Yeah, well, I do.

As you probably already know, we spent a week with a very sick Daddy here. Then the week after we were all...kind of better. Then a week with me sick. Then yesterday, we were sitting at the table and Zac cried out in complete pain! He didn't know what hit him, neither did we. We were very worried that it was a hernia because Stephen had his first at age 11, and it seems to be a genetic problem we hoped we'd not gotten.

We got Zac into a doctor's appointment today and she said his stomach was pretty distended (ouch!, poor kid...). But then she said something that totally caught me off guard: His lips are red, did he have a sucker or does he have strep? Well, we knew strep was going around our family but never knew that it could become an infection in the tummy. Turns out it can. No hernia, just a strep infection.

While there at the doctors office Chayce says to me, "Mommy, this finger that I've been holding in my fist (she'd been keeping her hand in a fist lately, but I hadn't thought much of it, sometimes she pretends she's holding imaginary creatures and I've learned to be respectful of that) is really hurting today, do you think that the doctor might have a Dora band-aid? That would fix it."

I look down to see that her finger tip was dark red, and around the nail was swollen and green. Oh. My. So, I ask her to show it to the resident who happened to be following our pediatrician around today, and she said, "Oh, we really should fix that." So, the doctor's secretary slipped me some paperwork and it became a two-child appointment. I felt like a horrible mom, not having noticed that she had an infected hang-nail. The doctor had to cut it open to relieve some pressure (OUCH!), and then put her on antibiotics as well. I was so glad that Stephen had taken the time to be there today, so he could hold each child down for their procedures (Zac's throat swab and Chayce's finger slice) since Payge was being a little pill. I think we might actually wind up with some terrible two's from her, which is shocking because she's been so pleasant thus far.

But, she used to be the one who would sing "Team work, clean up" and clean up the puzzles for me. Now she throws them and cries as I urge her to pick them up. She dumped a bowl of cereal on purpose, and then tonight at dinner THREW her plate. Luckily, it landed face up, and the food was still on it. Yay for the staying power of shepherd's pie! I kind of hope she just doesn't feel well and this will pass. We snuggled tonight and she seemed happy for that. I put them all to bed early tonight, hoping that will make for a better weekend.

Unfortunately, I was thinking that with Zac having strep, I will probably have another weekend of no church. That's three out of the last four we've missed. I'm feeling in-active, and I don't like it as much as I thought I would.

Please tell me that we're getting all of 2010's illnesses over with, so the rest of the year can be smooth sailing. PLEASE.