she has what now?

Ladies and gentlemen ...

... preeeesenting ...

... blurry rash face!

Sometime in September, a rash developed on Yuki's face. Just around her mouth, like a goatee. Didn’t seem to bother her much, but applying lotion didn’t do anything so after a week, we took her to the doctor. He said it may be “impetigo” and suggested an antibiotic cream. When that did nothing, we went back and he suggested jock itch cream. After we got done giggling, we tried that and when that didn’t work, we took her back and the doc was puzzled. He pulled in another doctor to have a look and said that this may be a form of eczema and not impetigo after all. Since I also have eczema, I felt that was probably true and followed his direction of putting cortisone cream on it, which worked like a charm. It said to use it for a week. We did. Then we stopped. Then the rash came back with a vengeance. We then called the dermatologist our doctor referred us to (in case it didn’t work), and I took Yuki in. The physician’s assistant took one look at her face and said, “She has perioral dermatitis.” Who with what now? It apparently is a sort of a bacterial rash that is common in adolescent girls (Yuki is very mature for her age, I guess) and only appears around the mouth (hence the name peri-oral) and a little bit under the eyes which is exactly what she had. Then she looked up and said, “You have it too.” (Which makes me immature for my age?) I get this rash on my chin during the winter, which was diagnosed by a different dermatologist a few years back as Rosacia. Apparently, that was wrong. So now we are both on month long antibiotic treatments. (Yuki's is in a delicious "banana suspension" --Philip) I am told if treated right, this does not come back. We’ll see. I’m mostly amazed at the amount of Latin I just learned in two months.

"Oatmeal makes me pensive."

Yuki has taken a turn in her eating. She has been a good eater, but lately she has become a distracted eater. She wants what is on our plates, even if we have the same thing. She is sometimes in the mood to eat one thing, but not other times. She has learned to eat a number of things with a spoon which is good, and now wants to drink without a lid on her sippy cup, but in letting her try, she misses, spills, and sometimes dumps the contents all over the table and the floor (much to Trixie’s glee). It’s a pain in the ass. Then Friday, she didn’t really eat lunch. Or dinner. On Saturday, she ate a decent amount of breakfast, but again no lunch or dinner. We didn’t want to push her since last time she didn’t eat was followed by her very first puke, but I noticed that she was a bit warm. Then she was a lump. She just draped her body on me from after dinner all the way until bed, which is sweet and all but also an indication that she is not feeling well. I put her to bed at 8:00 that night and she slept until 9:00 the next morning. As I was reading her bed time stories, Philip, who was in the next room on the computer said, “Ohhh…” I said, “What?” He said, “Someone in Yuki’s class came down with the ‘hand, foot, and mouth disease.’” (not Latin)

"Will these boots protect me?"

I would have said, “What the Hell is that?” if my niece in Japan did not have this very virus ten years ago, on our wedding day as she served as a flower girl. She (then six years old) was diagnosed days before leaving Tokyo and they came anyway. Poor thing was miserable and couldn’t speak or eat from the pain, but was a trouper and did her job. The funny part of this story is that my sister-in-law also contracted this virus, which is only supposed to spread among children. My brother would not shut up about his “child bride.” She was also silent during our wedding, not because she wasn’t fluent in English, but because she was in pain. She did manage to eat everything, because she came all that way.

Back to Yuki. One of the early symptoms of said disease is lack of appetite and fever (thank you internet). Hmm… On Sunday, she had an OK start, but while we were running errands, she started to wilt. We took her home to no lunch or snack. She napped a decent amount, and played pretty well, but looked a bit peaked. Dinner came but she ate more than we’ve seen her eat in a few days, which was good to see. We decide to keep her home from daycare on Monday, in case sores started showing up. That night, she went to bed at 8:00, but woke up two hours later and stayed up until 1:00. This unexpected event led her to sleep until 9:00 the next morning and she woke up in an unusually foul mood. She found her cup of water from the night before and drained it. Then it happened. This time, she puked on daddy. A lot. But just water (I beg to differ. That was way more than just water. –Philip). I need to tell you that this was immediately after the dog threw up and I had just finished cleaning it off the carpet.

"I am not cleaning that up."

At this point, I decided not to go to work. We also decided that Yuki had a stomach flu and not hand, foot, and mouth disease. She threw up one more time on Philip’s back (he was holding her) and spent the rest of the morning looking like someone who just celebrated her 21st birthday. Then she napped for two and a half hours. When she woke up, she was better. She ate her weight in food for dinner and again this morning at breakfast. She was back at daycare today.

Outside of these small speed bumps, Yuki is progressing. (I suppose these illnesses are part of the progress too). Now that she is fully mobile and active, it is all about packing her non-daycare days with stuff that will wear her out. In the morning, so that she will nap well, and in the afternoon so that she will get a good night's sleep. I think all parents are slaves to this concept. Different cities have their own unique climate that they deal with and for those who don’t live here, you may have heard that Seattle winter is gray and wet. BUT what you might not realize on top of that (I sure didn’t until I moved here), it gets dark FAST here. You think it’s starting to look sun setty around 3:30 and it’s pitch dark by 4:30 (this is of course countered by our summer when you think it’s 5:00 for about four hours and wonder why you are so hungry and look at the clock and realize it’s 9:00). But, dry days are precious outside days. So last week, we got to the park at around 4:00 and were there until 5:00. The last 30 minutes were in the dark. Pushing the swing. Climbing the jungle gym. Sliding down the slide. What was odd was that we were not alone. There were at least four other parents with their kids, playing like it was broad daylight. Chatting with each other like nothing was wrong. On rainy days, we put our rain gear on and go for a walk. It keeps us moving. Oh, and I have gone to ballet for 8 consecutive weeks now. The combination of that and running around the playground has count for something because I can’t possibly do more.

"If we knew enough to come in from the rain, we'd never go outside."

When we are inside, we play and I watch how Yuki figures things out and what is catching her interest. She is watching, remembering, mimicking, trying, exploring, feeling, and thinking every waking moment of every day. I am pretty sure she is about to pass Trixie in her level of intelligence. An important milestone taught by our friends Trina and John. We feel we are about to witness a language explosion. Its all over after that, is what we are told. Stay tuned.