If you're sick and you know it, clap your hands, foot and mouth...

There's nothing quite like spending a great day among all your mommy friends and their little munchkins, watching your kids hug and smooch and throw each other off of and out of toys, reveling in how sweet they are and how idyllic it all is---only to have your kid wake up with a 102.5 degree fever and having the pediatrician tell you your kid has something called "Hand Foot and Mouth Disease" and has probably infected all aforementioned little munchkins with said hugs and smooches.

Awesome. It feels great to be 'that' mom.

Hand Foot and Mouth is apparently a virus that gives kids a kick-ass fever for a couple days, then makes them break out in blisters on their...anyone want to guess?...hands, feet and inside of their mouth.

We're still at the fever stage, although it seems to have subsided. I could not find a blister anywhere on the kid, but the pediatrician pointed to several places on him where one "might" pop up in the next few days.

I swear, half the time these doctors are making shit up as they go along. I love the woman, but I am not sure I'm on board with the diagnosis...we'll see if he blisters up in the next day or two.

In the meantime, we are joyfully quarantined (sense the sarcasm, please) as this phantom illness runs its course. It's hard to explain to a toddler who's showing absolutely no symptoms of any illness that he's sick and can't see his friends. Nothing is more pathetic than an almost 2 year old boy standing at the door and crying, "Lilllllllly. Chlooooooooooe."

These are the names of the little girls he has likely infected with his alleged HFMD. We shall see.

We've been keeping ourselves busy with lots of walks, singing and watching videos of Ethan. I swear, Ethan is a legend in his own mind, a veritable rock star. He knows now that there are videos of him in this blog, so whenever he sees me at the computer, he MUST see "Ethanee". I think, since all his friends' names end in a long "e" sound, Ethan has decided his name does, too. That's not at all feminine, right? Excellent.

So we watch the "walk-a-me" video and the "applesauce/octopus" video about eleventy billion times a day and you know that kid's got the entire script for each one completely memorized, complete with movements. When the on-screen Ethan points, real life Ethan points. When the on-screen Ethan gives a "No pictures, please!" flail, real life Ethan does the same. When on-screen Ethan's tone gets all "ugh, woman, you are so damn dumb!", real life Ethan's tone mimics it perfectly.

He is bound for Broadway, there can be little doubt.

Not a whole lot else is new; I am fretting over the birthday party that is a mere 8 days away. We have everything except a location..Urm. That's a small detail, right?

I'm just relieved the plague 'o blisters, should they ever show up, will be gone by then so that he won't be spreading the crud to any of his friends who haven't already been yucked up by his loving.