roses are red

We started the week off by sending me to Boston again, but luckily this time it wasn't the fall so I'm not in violation of any Veggie Tales songs. This was an interview with another company, for a position doing more natural language processing kinds of work, which would be cool. I liked the people I met a lot. Hopefully we'll hear something soon, and in the meantime we're back to normal.

I enjoyed seeing Wayne's sister, Camilla, and Victor again. They took me to a yummy sandwich place and an ice cream place and showed off Cambridge. So much fun.

Wayne and Paela had a good time playing in bookstores; she does love her bookstores. Though unfortunately she developed a fever the day I left and was fussy most of the time I was gone. At least the bookstores kept her content.

We thought not much of it when the fever left Wednesday and she started getting what looked like a mild rash in the diaper area. We went to a well baby check-up (yay for state insurance for kids!) and the doctor gave us a prescription for her "sensitive skin." The nurse had a wretched time finding Paela's vein for a blood sample, and Paela screamed and screamed while the nurse wiggled the needle this way and that and we had to pin her down. The nurse finally called a different nurse in, who got a vein on her first try. Sigh -- poor Paela and her bruised arm.

Later that day we took Paela to some slides, because she was still irritable. We figured she must still be getting over whatever the fever was all about. She loved the slides, and signed "again" every time, but wanted to be carried from the bottom to the top again.

The next day we could be in doubt no longer. She was definitely still sick. The "sensitive skin" had spread to her back, chest, and neck. We hemmed and hawed until Friday when she was covered in a rash. At that point we shrugged, thought it might be Roseola based on an internet search, and took her to the doctor just in case. Who said it was a virus, most likely Roseola. Glad we spent the three hours in the urgent care facility with a sick, uncomfortable, unhappy child, trying to keep her from screaming (as much) and annoying everyone else. And that was with an appointment. But, then, it was "free" right? Right? Next time I'd rather not take her in just to be told it's a virus though and there's nothing to be done but wait. I guess being told it's not something else is maybe worth something, but whatever it is worth, it is not worth three hours in the waiting room.

So Paela spent much of Thursday through Saturday screaming and crying at pretty much everything. The rash didn't bother her much, but she didn't eat more than 5-6 spoonfuls of applesauce each day and maybe had half her usual milk. Water she took pretty well, but even cuddling didn't calm her all the time. Poor kid. Luckily she was much better today and the rash disappear over night, so we braved Church. Good riddance, roseola.

I teach the 5- and 6-year olds again at Church (ctr 6 and 7), but since the kids all moved up a class in January, I got a whole new bunch of 5-year olds. Fifteen total, according to the roll. It's not a small class, but the kids seem on the ball and fairly calm, so it should be good. They seemed to enjoy having Paela wander around the back of the room, and it seemed only a little distracting. Whew.

And Karl and Angela and Thomas graced us with their company for the first time this year. Paela and Thomas seemed to have lots of fun following each other around from this toy to that and back to the kitty again. Star cat is a very patient cat, fortunately.