The McClelland Family

“Let me take your hampsetter.”

For those that don’t speak fluent Mary, allow me translate.

“Let me take your temperature.”

Mary has been taking everyone’s (and everything’s) hampsetter the past few days.  Hers.  Mine.  Kevin’s.  Lila’s.  Pearl’s.   Morris’s.  She even took the temperature of the wall.  Coincidentally, all of the above have the same hampsetter…5.

Her obsession with the thermometer has most likely stemmed from my obsession with the thermomemter…Lila came down with a high fever on Thursday and is just now recovering, so I’ve been obsessively taking her “hampsetter” every few hours for the past 5 days.  Fevers scare the crap out of me.  These little kiddos just get so HOT when they have a fever, and the high numbers on the thermometer scare the you-know-what out of me.  104 degrees?!  She’s going to burst into flames before my eyes!

We’ve had 2 doctor appointments and 1 visit to urgent care with Lila.  She refused food for nearly 4 days and was hardly drinking any fluids, so dehydration was our (and our doctor’s) main concern.  Then yesterday she developed a rash all over her torso.  The doctor is certain it’s just some unidentified virus.  Thankfully, as of today Lila seems to finally be on the mend.  In fact, today was the first day I’ve seen her play since Thursday morning.  When I realized that I teared up a little bit.  Seeing my Lila laying listless on the couch for 3 days, or holding her in my arms and hearing her constant moans of discomfort, or watching her refuse all food, EVEN CANDY AND ICE CREAM (yes, I was desperate to get something into her little belly!), or waking up to her raspy cries in the middle of the night…it’s torture for me to see her like this.

A funny story from Sunday night…Lila woke up at about 3 am crying for water.  I jumped out of bed, got her a cup of water from the kitchen, and headed to their bedroom.  Normally she stays in her bed and when she’s crying, so when I opened the door the last thing I expected to see was Lila RIGHT there in front of me.  The funniest part about it all was that she was wearing a pair of jammies from Old Navy that have a glow in the dark skeleton painted on them, and it was pitch black and I wasn’t wearing contacts or glasses and I was still kind of half asleep…so it looked like a glowing skeleton floating in the air!  Well, I wasn’t half asleep after that scare!

Here are a few pictures of Mary and Lila at the park last weekend, before the Big Sick.  I hope that she’s well enough to go back to the park this weekend and that we just put this whole thing behind us!  (This all assumes that Mary will stay healthy…fingers crossed…)