New Adventures in Parenting, Or, The Rash That Ate My Baby

So Mike noticed a gnarly rash creeping up on HR's thighs and chest yesterday, so we decided to keep an eye on it and re-assess in the morning. Cut to: the morning, where we find him covered in small pink welts from bow to stern. Two lucky things: he doesn't appear to feel itchy, and he hasn't yet had a fever. But we brought him to the pediatrician, the third visit in a week. Did I mention that our boy is not a fan of the doctor for some reason? If anyone wearing a stethoscope so much as glances in his direction, we're treated to a master class in histronics. So it was a fun morning.

The doctor thinks it's either a reaction to the antibiotics he's been taking, or else the good old Coxsackie (aka hand, foot & mouth) virus. He's been switched to a different type of medication, so we'll see if that makes any difference. It sucks to be left in limbo and be on edge at all times waiting to see if it worsens, if his temp spikes, if he starts acting out of sorts. But since Mike was assured that it's not a flesh-eating virus and the little boy is as happy as can be (when not in the doctor's office, that is), I think we'll manage. No telling yet how our weekend plans will be affected, but we can deal with whatever happens. Once again, though, I marvel at people's ability to function when they have really sick kids. Here's hoping that's one challenge to which we'll never have to rise.

About The Notebook, briefly, which I watched last night as if it were a new movie: I liked it OK. I like Ryan Gosling more than OK. But even though I had an inkling about the non-Gosling subject matter, I feel like maybe someone who knows me and knows that the elderly are my kryptonite should have told me to skip it and just re-watch, like, Half-Nelson. Then again who am I kidding with that, it just would have made me twice as determined to see it. Don't tell, but I think deep down I might be something of a masochist.

Any-way. Here's a song for the kind of summer night I don't much have any more, the kind where you drink something clear and cold and strong and crank up the volume and dance around like crazy with your friends. Or alone. It's all good.