One week, both ends of the spectrum

The beginning of last week was an absolute nightmare. Wait, no, let me correct that. The nightmare actually began on two days earlier on Saturday night right around bedtime. Gabbie had a hard time going to sleep (which is incredibly unusual for her), but once she was finally down we were hopeful she was asleep enough to sleep all night. Hope was dashed when she woke up 30 minutes later, and then proceeded to wake up every 30 to 40 minutes the rest of the night. She was acting like her mouth hurt, so we thought maybe she was teething (even though she's a great teether, and usually we don't know she's getting a tooth until it's already broken through - sorry I don't mean to brag).

The next morning, in my haze, I noticed she had some raised white blister-like spots in her mouth. My thoughts turned immediately to hand, foot, and mouth disease since it has been going around her daycare. We did what we could to alleviate her pain and malaise, and basically gave her whatever made her happy all day. Sunday night was a repeat of the night previous, and we had already decided we would be keeping her home for the two days that week we had planned to send her in to daycare.

But by Monday afternoon we started to get more concerned, because she had refused to eat or drink anything all day, and the few bites or sips we had tricked her into taking had resulted in tears and a hand covering her mouth. We were also (selfishly, I know) starting to get worried about our planned vacation. We had already cancelled plans to go anywhere but were still hoping to drop Gabbie off at my parents' house to get a few days respite (and catch up on missed sleep).

We called the doctor with our concerns, and she asked us to bring her in during their evening office hours and we were semi-happy to learn that she didn't have HFM, but were also sad to hear she had caught a common virus that causes canker and cold sores. She had about 7 canker sores in her mouth, hence why she wouldn't eat or drink anything. It hurt!

With the medicine we got for her, she improved quickly, and we were able to drop her off at my parents' as planned. The weekend ended as good as the beginning of the week was bad. That is, to say, that we had a fantastic time. We never ran out of things to talk about, something I had worried would happen. We used the time to really reconnect and rediscovered that best friend that had been missing and replaced by a co-parent. We really had a lot of fun, even though most of the time was spent shopping for Christmas gifts. Aaron made sure I didn't have to cook once (except for some oreo and nutter butter truffles for gifts), and took me out for some truly fantastic meals. We slept through the night three nights in a row. We even got to go bowling (if you catch my drift). A few times.

Like I said, wonderful. Then we went and picked up Gabbie, who was thrilled to see us, and spent the night hanging out with my parents and playing board games. It was hard to go back to work yesterday morning, but at least I had a few great days under my belt to bolster me through the rest of the work days this year. If only every other week could be vacation week my life would be pretty damn near perfect.