A Good Thing

Natalie has contracted her first illness since the start of preschool. She's had a runny nose since pretty much the first day of school, and now it has morphed into an ear infection. No, that's not the "good thing." The good thing is how great it feels to be able to take her to the doctor and cuddle with her at home while she is sick. She had SO many ear infections (leading to tubes twice, and adenoid removal) as an infant in daycare. It bordered on ridiculous how often I had to take off work to take her to the doctor or stay home with her while she was contagious from some weird rash or virus or illness that defied definition. Not to mention the guilt on both fronts as I simultaneously felt guilty about being such a bad employee and horrible about not being able to be there as a mother as much as I would have liked. That was one of the primary reasons I quit to stay home with the kids - that awful feeling of having to choose between my child and my job. My manager never complained, and Natalie probably didn't know any better, but it still tore me up. So, pardon me now while I breathe a big sigh of relief and enjoy my time at home with my sick child. It's a good thing.

And I will stop on that blissful note, without going into too much detail about the "phase" that we are going through right now (I like to call it the "Oh NO you can't make me do ANYthing I don't want to do" phase) that makes giving medicine of any sort to Natalie more difficult than giving a sleeping pill to a cat. Yes, I've done both. The cat was slippery and noisy, but Natalie is as strong as NHL hockey player and about as fearless. I can only hope that antibiotics are good for the hair and skin. If she has a nice glossy sheen in the next picture, you'll know why.