A Very Long And VERY Draining Week

Well, I think that the title of this post pretty much gives you the idea of how thing have been going around here lately.  The weekend after the girls' doctor appointment went surprisingly well.  By the time Tuesday came around, however, something was clearly bothering Claire.  She got a fever of about 101 degrees and was EXTREMELY irritable.  We decided the shots and teething were responsible.  The fever was gone by Wednesday morning, but her attitude still left much to be desired.  She woke up Thursday with a faint rash all over her body.  I contacted the doctor's office, and they said it sounded like a virus called Roseola (aka "the sixth disease"), and we would just have to wait it out.  Since double trouble tends to be the theme around here, it was no surprise when Breanne came down with the fever and irritability Thursday evening.  By Friday evening I was miserable with a fever and sore throat. Breanne developed a similar rash to Claire's a couple days later. She was also drooling a lot on Saturday, which we just assumed had to do with her teething.  More recently, the girls both started getting blister-like sores on their fingers and toes.  At this point I half expected a team of people to show up wearing hazmat suits to quarantine our house.  The rashes have disappeared and their attitudes have been slowly improving.  Things seemed to be getting noticeably better the last couple of days, but I brought them in to the doctor's office today mainly for peace of mind and curiosity.  It turns out that they had contracted a virus known as "Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease," which is common among toddlers and has apparently been spreading around like wildfire in the area.  I bet the girls got the virus at their wellness check a few days before the symptoms started.  Anyway, it is a pretty harmless virus as long as you can prevent dehydration.  The main issue is that the sores are no doubt painful, and they are actually in the mouth too, which was what was causing Breanne to drool so much.  Thankfully, I guess it has pretty much run its course with the girls at this point.  Lance and I had been so desperate to give them some relief, since the Tylenol wasn't helping, that we caved in and let them have their pacifiers back.  Between the teething, shots, and the virus, it would be an understatement to say that our poor little girls were not happy campers.  It has been a battle the last couple of days to get them back to the old routine of only having the pacifiers at sleep times.  Needless to say, mama has been shedding a lot of tears lately.  As you can imagine, this all really put a damper on my Mother's Day, but Lance was kind enough to let me escape for a while and did everything he could to make the day better even though he probably would have preferred to escape as well.   We finally got our first uninterrupted night of sleep in 10 days last night. So, I am happy to report that the girls are pretty much back to their normal selves, and we are looking forward to spending the weekend with all of my family and having professional pictures taken.  There will be five kids under the age of six, so it should be interesting.  HAPPY BELATED MOTHER'S DAY to  all of you great moms out there!