Tough Cookie

This post is long and really has two parts. Part 1: Last Friday, Chris and I celebrated Date Day 2010. We took the day off work and, after sleeping in a bit, we dropped off Charlotte at school. "Did she have a good doctor's appointment?" one of her teachers asked, seeing as how we were dropping her off a good 2 hours later than usual. "Um, she didn't have a doctor's appointment today," Chris said with a bit of embarassment. "We're not working today, so we slept in." No explanation that it was Date Day--a day we had planned and looked forward to for months. Nope, we just guiltily dropped her off at school, despite having the day off from work, and went on our merry way. First, we ate breakfast at Georgetown Grill. "Do you realize that this is the first time the two of us have been in a restaurant together--without Charlotte--since she was born? Since January?" I asked. "No naps, feedings, or fussiness to worry about." Chris grinned. "Yup." Of course, we talked about her most of the meal. We never used to do that on our dates. Then, with a nice greasy base in our tummies, we headed to Virginia wine country. At the first winery, we did a basic tasting, but it took forever. We realized we probably only had time for one more winery, so we hit our very favorite one called Chateau O'Brien. They don't allow kids, which is perfectly fine with me, but it does mean that we can't bring Charlotte with us. So it was now or never to go! Lucky us, they had just released their 2007 wines the day before, and 2007 was a fabulous year for wine (a drought that year, which apparently is good for wine). We did their reserve tasting, which was AMAZING, and then their normal one because, well, it's always good. We were the only people there and having a splendid child-free time. After deciding Charlotte doesn't need to go to college after all and blowing way too much money on reserve bottles of wine (hey, we now have super special wines for our anniversary in November and Charlotte's 1st birthday in January. . . and about two other uber special occassions), we sat out on a veranda with a couple glasses of their vinter's reserve and a cheese platter, gawking at the lovely Shenandoah Valley. Alas, it was finally time to go back to reality and pick up our pumpkin. When we arrived, we learned that an epidemic of hand-foot-mouth disease had plagued her class (seriously, two out of five babies have it right now and the next class up has two more cases). I groaned, hoping that our decision to play hooky and leave her at daycare didn't end up making her sick. And now Part 2 of my post: We watched Charlotte carefully all weekend long. She was napping like a champ (she typically hates naps), which we chalked up to our efforts at consistency and putting her down before she got too tired. Lots of back-patting took place. On Saturday night, Charlotte slept for 14 hours. Odd, but not alarming--except for that terrifying moment in the morning when I looked at the clock, did some quick math, and raced to the nursery. . . just to find a chubby girl grinning at me, proudly holding her feet! But during playtime, she just wasn't too into it. Then, as we drove to Target I glanced in the backseat--and Charlotte wasn't playing with her octopus toy. She merely stared tiredly out the window. I knew then that something wasn't right. When we got home, I checked her over for spots or a rash--a hallmark of the virus. Charlotte stuck out her tongue at me--and then I saw it: a bright red spot on the end of her little tongue. One unpleasant temperature reading later, our girl had a fever of 100.3. Not terrible, but clearly her little body was fighting something. I knew we had a leg up on quickly fighting this sucker, considering that Charlotte had been allowed to get lots and lots of sleep. I decided to skip the evening solid foods and gave her an extra big bottle to keep her hydrated (but she only ate half of it--very unlike her) and the kid was asleep for the night by 4:45 p.m. (Okay, I might have rocked my feverish baby for an extra 10 minutes or so, holding her extra tight after she had fallen asleep.) Then I called my mom. "What (sob) am (sob) I (s0b) gonna (sob) do?" I asked, obviously between sobs. I had a massive week ahead of me at work and a sick baby was going to sink me. If forced to choose between Charlotte and my pile of work, Charlotte wins. But work for me has been just awful lately, and I'm perpetually behind on everything, despite going a zillion miles per hour every single day. But if my baby needed me, then she'd be rocked and soothed by nobody but her mama. Period. Still, there was that never-ending pile of work . . . . My mom was pragmatic. "She has 13 hours to finish this bug. Thirteen hours is a long time, especially for a kid, for a fever. See what she's like in the morning and decide what to do then." The next morning, I went into the nursery to wake her up. I peeked over the side of the crib, but the little twerp was already bright-eyed and grinning, ready for a new day! "Well, that's a good sign!" I said, lifting her out of the crib. And Charlotte was her classic Charlotte self--super wiggly and super, duper interested in absolutely everything around her. Better yet? Zero temperature and the spot on her tongue was gone. "You're my tough cookie, aren't you?" I said, changing her into her school clothes. "That nasty virus took out half your class, but you fought it off, you hardy little thing! You must be extra tough from surviving the first 2 months of your life in a freezing cold apartment during the worst blizzards the mid-Atlantic has ever seen! Or maybe it's your tough German blood!" So, off to school she went. And off to work I went.