Confessions of a Starbucks addict

My little Shayna is sick. She stayed home from school on Friday because of a severe cold. Her teacher told her to tell me (on Thursday) that she should probably stay home because of all the sneezing. I kept her home and she seemed fine. She played all weekend, I just kept dosing her with children's Robitussin for the awful coughing and runny nose she had. When Monday morning came, she really wasn't looking any better, so I kept her home again. That day she stayed on the couch all day and didn't really have an appetite. I figured she'd be fine the next day.

Boy was I wrong. I was awaken by Kaycee looking for the thermometer. Kaycee came back in and told me that Shayna's temp was 106 degrees. I quickly wake out of my twilight sleep and freak out. A few minutes later Troy checked her temp again and it was 103.9. Not 106 but almost 104. Not too much to worry about, but I knew that a fever meant she'd have to stay home.

I called in to the attendance office at her school and asked the attendance secretary to call me back. When we were in the Federal Way school district, if your child was out of school three or more days you had to take them to the doctor for a note. Apparently the attendance secretary wasn't up on the rules for the Kent district, so she said she thought it was five days. She and I worked it out that I wouldn't need to take Shayna to the doctor's unless she was going to be out another two days. She told me to keep Shayna home on Wednesday too, since the policy is that the child must be fever free for 24 hours before returning to school.

Today Shayna seemed fine all day. She got up and drew a little bit, she watched TV, ate a smidgen of food, and tried to force herself to drink water. We gave her unlimited sugar-free popsicle privileges. For most of the day her fever was gone. All of a sudden, it came back with a vengeance around 4 PM. Ugh...

I've decided to go ahead and take Shayna in to her doctor tomorrow. No amount of children's Tylenol or children's Motrin is keeping her fever at bay for more than a few hours at a time. I feel so badly for her. She looks miserable. She sleeps constantly. Poor thing. I worry about dehydration in her, so I've been trying to get her to sip some water at least once every half-hour, unless she's asleep. I'm hoping that this is just an ear infection or something equally simple. Unfortunately if it is an ear infection and she keeps her high fever, they still won't let her back into school...

Ah, kids...