Hand Foot and Mouth Disease

I hope, I seriously hope that whoever is reading this, your kids have never had and will never get this virus. Mercury had it back when he was two and I forgot how horrible it is. It is so hard as a mom to watch your child want to eat, take a bite of food and scream in pain. Then refuse to try again. Yes, this is what Neptune has. But he also had another complication from the virus that most kids don't get. He is 'bleeding under his skin'. So I can not even give him Motrin 'cuz it'll make the bleeding worse. Don't get me wrong, we can use Tylenol. I'm just a huge Motrin fan when kids are this sick.

Anyway if you are unfortunate enough to have to deal with this here are my tips. I'm an expert you know, I've now dealt with this twice. Yea, whatever Venus. Think what you like.

1. POPSICLES. Spend a mini-fortune on Popsicles and give them to the child on demand. And don't go for the sugar free. Really if they're not eating, let the kids have some sugar.

2. YOGURT. Both of my kids tolerated this well while sick. We've been doing some pudding, but for some reason, the yogurt is going over better.

3. AMERICAN CHEESE. Seriously. I learned this one last night by accident. Neptune snagged some out of Mercury's lunchable. It's soft enough he can handle it. And he can't even handle a banana right now. So that's saying something. Plus it's got some substance to it so at least I feel like he's eating a little something.

4. BENADRYL. Now I do feel a little nag of mommy guilt over this one. But omg I can not handle being up every time Neptune rolls over in bed (the pressure on his mouth from his pillow wakes him). So yes, I drugged him with some Benadryl last night and I got 5 glorious hours of sleep.

And you can take or leave this last one

5. RAIN COAT. The drooling that these kids do while they have this is insane. Please be prepared for the drooling!