Head, Shoulders, Knees, and…oh wait.

That's not right.  Let's try that again.

Hand, foot, and mouth...that's right we're stuck at home.

Here's the short version:

• Diagnosis: Hand, foot, and mouth disease.


• Patient: Finn


• Prognosis: He'll be fine.


• Current state: Looks horrible, acting pretty normal.


• Treatment: House arrest. Oh, and Motrin.


• Official family statement: Sorry if my kid licked yours this week.

Long version: sigh...

• Tuesday - started not eating very well.  Surprising since he usually eats anything around him, but toddlers go through phases so we just decided to keep an eye on him.


• Wednesday afternoon - small bump on the inside of his elbow, looked like a bug bite. Keep an eye on it.


• Wednesday bedtime - small red spot near corner of mouth. Huh...that's interesting.  But, again. Keep an eye on it.


• Wednesday 11pm - crying from Finn's room. Ok, weird.  He doesn't usually wake up in the middle of the night.  Comfort, back to sleep.


• Thursday morning - sore where the red spot in corner of mouth was. Oookaaayy... Blister where small bump was on elbow.  Hmmm....  Change diaper, lift feet and see bumps all over bottom of foot.  Um, ok.  Mouth....Feet....let me see your hands. ...Spots.  1+1+1, and I'm pretty sure I know what this is.  Problem is he had other spots other places, like the elbow one so we decided to call the nurse.  She confirms what we think and says that spots may appear other places, not to worry.  No need to come in unless we want to. Keep hydrated, alternate tylenol and motrin. Got it.


• Thursday afternoon - this is out of control. Spots/blisters everywhere. We're now singing hand, foot, and mouth, and legs, arms, and back. Neck, belly, there is nothing without a spot... Make appointment.


• Thursday evening - diagnosis confirmed. Apparently in 1 in 8 children, it goes haywire.

Meet Haywire Finn.



Our Dr. had seen 20-25 children that day with it.  I think that qualifies under "it's going around." He also said that it would probably look even worse in the morning.

He was right.  Wowzers. Poor kid. Not really a ton of new spots, just mostly same ones a lot angrier today.

He's acting a lot better than he looks. He's acting normal (making big messes), interacting with his sister (pushing her buttons), and communicating with me (whining/"talking back"). Yes, it seems that while he looks really bad, he's doing just fine.

The only ones that seem to be bothering him are the ones in his mouth (now him not eating makes perfect sense).  He's getting a lot of fruit chillers, popsicles, ice cream, cold applesauce, and cold yogurt.  He eats a lot of those and is drinking cold stuff really well.  Ice chips are also a favorite treat. Goal is to keep him hydrated and not worry about healthy stuff at this point. His diapers are in the normal range so we're doing ok, I think.



Yesterday.



Today :(

So there you have it. This is a first for us and apparently Finn wanted us to have the full experience. Way to go above and beyond kid - represent the 1 in 8 out there.  And act fine through it.  Proud of you, bud.  Now, just stop wrecking the house in the process.



Eating ice chips with sister.



Playing trains, or something like that. He was sitting so nicely in the middle of the track and then right when I went to take the picture, he got up to go chase a ball.  Clearly he's not slowed down too much...

(Mia seems just fine.  We have pulled her out of school as well, just as a precaution. Yesterday was hard because keeping those away from cuddling, wrestling, hugging, kissing, stealing sippy cups, spit swapping in general is exhausting.  Dr. seemed to think that because she's older, if she were to get a lot of symptoms, she would have been showing them by now because of the incubation period.  She may say she has a little bit of a sore throat and that's it.  She's not showing or saying anything at this point).