Sickness, Sunburns and Storms

Last Wednesday afternoon when Matthew woke up from his nap he was burning up and his voice was a bit raspy. He was a little cranky but when I asked him what hurt him he said "nothin". Later though he came to me completely distressed, tears streaming down his face saying "Every time I talk my mouth turns into a grandma mouth and not a Matthew mouth". The next day he had his "grandma mouth" again but no fever. Just to clarify neither one of his grandmas have a raspy voice so I am convinced this idea that grandmas have raspy voices must have come from tv or something. He kept telling me he wanted to go see his Dr. at Target and get some tasty medicine. Of course, our Dr. doesn't work at Target, he was referring to the pharmacist I think in an attempt to cut out the middle man (the Dr.) and just get straight to the medicine that makes him all better. I didn't take him to the Dr. and on Friday he seemed fine. He told me upon waking he was "just a yittle bit sick". I found that to mean he was sick enough to have his sick suckers (these really cool throat soothing suckers made for little kids, I wish I would have invented that) but well enough to resume all other normal activities.

Friday night he woke up a few times and did some crazy screaming and he would not tell me what was wrong.

Saturday we had tickets to JFest, which is this great outdoor all day Christian music event. It was lots of fun. It was however the hottest day we have had yet, which means Erik and Matthew were drenched with sweat by the time the first band reached the chorus of their first song. My dad brought his binoculars which Matthew claimed immediately and barely let go of them for the remainder of the day. Matthew liked the music but did complain to me a couple of times that "the music notes were getting inside of him", but apparently that isn't a completely horrible thing because he did some dancing, played a little air guitar, and especially liked the stuff that was "rocking out" a bit as he would say. Later that evening once we were home Matthew's eye started looking a little different and oozing some yellow goo. Erik and I also noticed we had acquired a bit more sun than we had thought. We realized that one of us may have completely forgotten to put any sunscreen whatsoever on his/her legs and due to the way this person, whose identity will be kept secret, was sitting half of his/her legs were blazing, bright red and the other half white as white can be (in case you were wondering this particular look makes people, even complete strangers, laugh). We were all ready for sleep, but sleep would be hard to come by this particular night. Matthew was up screaming a few times, his eyes were all gunked up and swollen nearly closed, he threw up in his bed and had a bloody nose. Then, of course once he finally was sleeping for a few hours there was a very loud thunderstorm that woke him. By 4:45 AM I was quite ready to just give up on that night and start our Sunday extra early.

By morning, Matthew was looking pretty piratey with his one eye nearly closed and I had read that if the eye is swollen you should seek some medical attention so since our Dr. doesn't happen to be open on Sundays we tried out one of those Minute Clinics in CVS. So Matthew has a sore throat, ear infection and pink eye and we got prescription drugs to put into every hole on his face. The eye drops are miraculous, his eye looked nearly normal by the time he went to bed that night and there was no screaming in the night so I am guessing his ear is feeling better too. I fear his throat may never feel better if better means he can no longer have his sick suckers.

I have taken so long to write this post that I now have some new news as well. Erik is sick. He went to the Dr. I made a second trip to the Target pharmacy this week. He has strep throat. I think I need a sick sucker.