Hand Foot and Mouth....and Butt

I swear we can't keep from getting sick no matter what we do. After MONTHS of avoiding the dreaded hand foot and mouth, we caught it. UGH. Honestly, I had never heard of it before this year. The childcare at the gym had a breakout, where I first learned about it, so I had to stop taking the kids to go workout (ruining a pretty good workout streak I might add! Thanks a lot, stupid virus) Then our nursery had some cases, so we took Ellie out of nursery, and with us to our classes for a few weeks (also not pleasant). I normally wouldn't have freaked out about it so much, but its supposed to be slightly dangerous while pregnant.

So now that I know what it is, and what it looks like.....YUCK. It's pretty similar to chicken pox. The kids got high fevers, and then after about 24 hours of that, they developed some nasty blisters. Ellie has a really mild case, just a few small blisters and slight redness on her hands and feet. Boston has blisters EVERYWHERE...face, throat, feet, hands, butt, legs, arms....youch. No fun. He is itchy, sore, and just really uncomfortable. What makes this even better is there is NOTHING you can do for them. Nothing. I've been giving them oatmeal baths (lay out oats, coconut oil, salt, and lavendar oil on a rag, use a rubber band to tie it closed around the bathtub faucet, and let the water run through the rag) and benadryl for the itching (also hemerrhoid cream on Boston's booty...it causes him the most grief!) , and  tylenol/ibuprophen for the pain. 

Besides being stuck in the house in quarantine, there is really nothing we can do for fun. Everything they touch needs to be de-contaminated or thrown away. So..playing with sand and play doh are out. Card games and matching games are out, and i'm scared to let them color with their crayons. We've played a lot of trouble, watched a lot of movies, and spent most of our days playing in the bath. Only a few more days of this *hopefully* and we will be done!

Jeffrey ended up catching it almost a week after the kids got it. His mostly stayed in his throat, but he had a few random spots on his hands and feet. Nothing noticeable. Boy, was he miserable! We're still very grateful that I didn't catch it!

I wasn't able to get pictures of it at its worst, but this was the first day the blisters showed up on Boston's hands. I thought if he wore some fuzzy gloves, it would help not spread the virus, but I guess heat makes the blisters swell, so when I took them off, they were twice the size and super angry looking. Whoops. Future note to self, don't put gloves on them!!