Mysterious Condition

This morning I noticed that Riley seemed to have red bumps all over his arms and legs. Let me start out by saying that I had been at a meeting last night, and was not there during bath time. I'm sad to admit, the first thing that popped into my head was that Casey had used the wrong bath soap. Seemed like a plausible explanation. So my first phone call was to Casey. Nope, he was able to describe in perfect detail the bottle of soap that he used (which is amazing in itself and almost suspect). Being the stellar mom that I am, it never crossed my mind to call the doctor. Mommy failure #1 of the day. We headed straight to school. After all, it didn't seem to be bothering him any. However, when I dropped him off, I noticed that the red areas seemed to have gotten larger and more violent-looking than they had seemed at home. Still, I was convinced that it was an allergic reaction of some sort. (Who knows what goes on when I'm not around, right?) Mommy failure #2. By the time I got to work (a 5-minute drive from his school), I was convinced that the explanation was the result of one of the following scenarios: 1. When hitting "laser shows" in the backyard last night, he must've gotten into some poison ivy. Very likely given the overgrown state of our backyard. 2. It was some sort of strange infection he got after slicing his finger open on my razor on Sunday night (I know, I know, who leaves their razor out in a bathroom also used by a 3-year-old? I swear I usually make a concerted effort to put it away after use, but I had been in a hurry that morning.) 3. The injury to his eye from over a week ago was wreaking havoc on his little body - probably from all the germs on that stupid playgroud that had undoubtedly seeped into the large cut on his eye socket (did I even mention this ordeal?). 4. An infection from the large bloody scrape to his knee that he got after falling off the curb at the baseball game when trying to use the curb as a balance beam (woo hoo, though, for the first time ever, I was a good, well-prepared mom and actually had band-aids in my purse when this incident occurred). (Is it at all clear that we are going through an injury stage? I swear I have seen more blood in the past two weeks that I have in my whole life combined. I wonder if this is a stage that all almost-three-year-olds go through of if this is a sign of my life to come as the mom to not one, but two, boys. But I digress.) I decided that a good mom would call the doctor's office. After asking me a number of questions, the triage nurse asked me if Riley's rash was getting any worse. How would I know? He's at school. Pause. "Well, ma'am, I can't do any sort of triage if he's not there with you." Oh. Mommy failure #3 (at least). Well, ok, I thought, I'll just run to his school, take a look at him, call the nurse back while I'm in his presence, answer her questions and be back to work shortly. Mommy failure #4. Decided instead to compile a day's worth of work to bring home with me, pick him up from school, and spend the rest of the day with my little man to make sure that he was ok. Phone call #2 to the triage nurse. Go through her list of questions again. All seemed to be going well until she was wrapping up. Then came, "Ma'am, is there any possibility you could be pregnant?" Uh, yeah, I think there's actually a pretty good possibility of that. "Oh. Well, we're absolutely going to need to see Riley today then." Thinking it was the impending arrival of his brother that was causing him to break out in hives, I immediately determined this was all my fault. Fortunately she followed up by saying that they wanted him to be seen in case it was something contagious (like rubella - didn't we get him vaccinated for that???) that could pose a threat to me or the baby. Oh, ok. As I got my wits about me again, and tried to listen to an answer the rest of the nurse's questions, I realized that Wrigley was acting strangely. Turns out she was acting strangely because she was throwing up all over the rug in Riley's room. Awesome. Still on the phone with the nurse, I tell Riley not to play in Wrigley's vomit (the things that come out of my mouth some days...) and head downstairs to find some paper towels. Which, of course, are all gone. Luckily I remember that Casey was kind enough to run out late the other night to pick some up and locate them in the linen closet. Back upstairs to where Winston is happily trying to eat what Wrigley had thrown up. Super. Nurse tells me she'll have someone from the pediatrician's office call me back to set up an appointment. Good, off the phone now and able to get Winston out of the room, Wrigley outside to keep throwing up, and Riley properly supervised. Of course, he is extremely interested in Wrigley's illness (see post on "Why"), proceeds to tell me how icky it is and that he doesn't like it (really, because that is helping me so much right now as I'm seven months pregnant, quesy, barely able to bend over and trying to clean it up), and then starts unraveling the roll of paper towels so that he can "help". This is really shaping up to be a great day. Fast forward ten minutes. Appointment for Riley scheduled for an hour later. Wrigley no longer throwing up and is back inside. Things are under control. Get lunch made, call Casey with an update, bribe Riley into eating half of his sandwich, head out the door for Riley's appointment. Semi-calm by the time we get to doctor's office. May have even been able to pull off looking relaxed as we waited to be called and watching "Nemo" and "Jonah" swimming in their tank (the only two fish names he knows). Appointment with doctor was relatively uneventful. Riley could not have been better - he was so brave and it really didn't even seem to bother him to get poked and prodded. I think after all of the fake calls we've made to Dr. Anderson when trying to get Riley to laugh off his minor injuries ("Dr. Anderson, Riley skinned his knee, what should we do? Oh, yes, sure, we'll tell him that the only cure is to take a nap."), he is fascinated by doctors. In fact, he was so good and brave while he was being examined that the doctor even thanked him for being such a good boy (proud mommy). The only thing he would not cooperate with was opening his mouth really wide and saying "Ahhh" really loudly (guess the "inside voice" discussions we've had are paying off). I finally convinced him that it was ok and he grinned really wide before he opened his mouth really wide and yelled. Funny kid. Turns out that the rash is the tail end of some sort of throat virus that's going around. We hadn't even noticed that he'd been sick. Mommy failure #100 of the week. We were sent on our way. Back home to take a nap and then have some quality time together since I'd pulled him from school for the day. Got some work done while Riley napped and was feeling pretty good about things until Riley woke up and I stepped in another pile of vomit on my way to get him out of bed. In my bare feet. Great, will come back to clean that up in a minute. Get Riley out of bed and send him to the bathroom so that I can clean up that mess. Not 2 seconds later, as Riley enters the bathroom, I hear him say, "Uh oh." Big sigh. This can only mean one thing -- he didn't make it to the bathroom in time. Wrong again. Wrigley has thrown up all over (and I really do mean ALL OVER) the bathroom floor. Again instruct Riley not to play in the vomit while I retrieve the cleaning supplies. Two rolls of paper towels later, I have cleaned up both of these incidents. Time to call Wrigley's doctor. Take the dogs and Riley out to the car in the pouring rain, load everyone in, and climb into the driver's seat, only to find that there is at least a half an inch of standing water on the driver's side floor. Seriously??? No time to deal with that now. Head to the vet's office. An IV and a $400 vet bill later, we were sent home with all sorts of instructions. If this is what a day "off" feels like, now I understand why I'm not a stay at home mom.