The only good thing about this blog post is the headline as I like a good pun.

 

Anyway, here we go:

 

In the past few days Katie got a rash. Or load of red spots. Hard to tell.

 

She was also a bit out of sorts. Not eating as much as usual. Crying a lot more etc.

 

How to decide what the rash/red spots/behaviour were all about:

 

Was it chicken pox?

 

Was it hand, foot and mouth?

 

Was it nothing?

 

Or, guess what? An unspecified viral infection. I've written about that before.

 

Answer: go see the doctor.

 

On the first visit to the doctor the decision was that it was a viral infection. Cue my usual scepticism.

 

It hadn't spread to her hands, although her mouth was so sore she had real problems eating anything. And when your child doesn't eat enough I can tell you from personal experience they'll let you know they're hungry. Of course, when they try to eat something it hurts because their mouth is sore. And your child will let you know about that too. All that plus a lack of sleep adds up to one challenging child.

 

Poor Urs bore the brunt of it this week.

 

On Wednesday she noticed some more spots on Katie's hands so back to the doctor they went.

 

What's up this time, doc?
This time it was diagnosed as hand, foot and mouth.

 

Now don't panic - hand, foot and mouth is not the same as foot and mouth that cattle get.

 

But that doesn't mean it's a barrel of fun.

 

You can find out about hand, foot and mouth on the NHS direct website.

Below I've pasted some bits from it:

Symptoms of hand, foot and mouth disease usually start to appear 3-7 days after being infected with the virus.

The early symptoms of hand, foot and mouth disease include:

• fever,
• loss of appetite,
• sore throat,
• small flat or raised red spots in the mouth, throat, and skin.
• generally feeling unwell.

After 12-36 hours, any red spots will develop into yellowy-red ulcers (lesions) in your mouth, around the roof of your mouth, tongue and inside of your cheeks. These ulcers may be sore and uncomfortable, making it difficult to eat, drink and swallow.

After 1-2 days, sores may develop on the palms of your hands, the soles of your feet, and between your fingers and toes. In some cases, they also develop on the buttocks and genitals. The sores last for about 3-6 days and may be itchy and uncomfortable. They are smaller than chicken pox sores.

Of course, this is a viral infection.

And it also explains why the diagnosis wasn't made first time around.

 

We will need to be careful because:

 

NHS direct says:

 

Hand, foot and mouth disease treatment
And how do we treat it? Well...

 

Oh joy.

 

 

So, er, that yoghurt I tried to encourage her to have by eating some of it off her spoon myself...oh dear, not good.

 

Still, I have been good at comforting her by hugging and kissing her. Let's see what NHS Direct says about that:

 

 

Oops.

 

Well she'll cheer up when she goes to nursery, right?

 

 

So she won't be able to go to nursery and she'll be at home.

 

Which means one of us won't be going to work.

 

We had a good week away in the Lake District at Easter.

 

Various pics below.

 

We took Katie to see Wycombe Wanderers thrash Morecambe 1-0 at Christie Park a few weeks ago.

 

Not a high quality match but a good result for the Blues.

 

Our friends even got Katie a mention on the tannoy at half-time.

As any parent will, er, probably know Noo-Noo is the vacuum cleaner in the Teletubbies' house.

 

Our own Noo-Noo did some tidying up the other week and Katie got quite excited about it.

 

The air blew her hair about which was fun.

 

 

Katie now has four teeth fully through.

 

Her contemporaries generally have quite a few more.

 

Her fourth one came though while we were on holiday, which explains the 2:13am 'fun' one morning.

I'm catching up on some blog posts I meant to do a while ago but, well, you know what happens when you have a small child around (I suspect it's the same when they're bigger, too).

 

This one is about the most recent NCT Nearly New Sale.

 

Long-term readers of this blog will know that I have dispensed advice on how to make the most of these excellent events (basically, turn up early).

 

Well this time we went one stage further this time. Instead Urs volunteered to help by working on the check-outs. This gave her the chance to buy stuff before the sale opened to the public.

 

Katie and I stayed at home.

 

Urs staggered home with bags of bargain clothes and a few toys:

 

In recent days Katie has been saying "ba-ba" (bye-bye) a lot.

 

She even said it this evening when Laa-Laa was waving goodbye on the latest Teletubbies DVD that I acquired.

 

And today when we gave her a cuddly Bob the Builder (hand-me down from cousin) and we said "Bob" she replied: "Bob". Ahh.

 

She also tried to say "Ossie" for the first time which is the name of Urs' teddy bear but it didn't sound much like Ossie.

 

She's still saying "dada" a lot.

 

Which is nice.

End of week sixty and we have reached 2,319 nappies.

At the end of week 58 we hit 2,237 nappies.

Katie has officially started walking.

 

She still prefers to hold onto something but is now happily taking quite a few unaided steps at a time.

 

When it suits her.

 

Which is why this video wasn't easy to get.

 

 

 

We had a wonderful week in the Lake District.

 

Katie saw snow for the first time.

 

Full write-up to follow.