It became clear to us in the middle of last night why J may have been so crabby and clingy the last couple of days, when he crawled into bed with us, and his whole body emanated heat!

He complained of a sore throat (pronounced “froat” by him) two days ago, but he had no other symptoms, and it got better with a little ibuprofen. His brother was having a little trouble with stomach ache, and we figured we had a mild viral syndrome going around. I had a stuffy nose and sore throat as well.

Yesterday, we spent the entire day at our synagogue, observing Yom Kippur. J was not willing to stay in babysitting, despite the fact that it was held in his usual preschool classroom that he goes to every morning. He was cranky, and whiny, and nothing helped him settle down. He complained about being hungry, but then didn’t eat. Ugh!! So frustrating for us parents! (Especially since we were all out of the ibuprofen that J finds tolerable; we could only offer the children’s acetaminophen that sadly both kids have pronounced “Yucky”!)

So, when he was so obviously febrile last night, it was almost a relief to have an explanation. But, of course, then came the problem, who stays home with him? I won the lucky straw.

R went to work early, so that he could get as much as possible done in case he has to take off tomorrow. That left me with both kids (after R went and fetched some palatable ibuprofen liquid).

The kids ate breakfast (J not so much), and they both got shoes on, and S packed his backpack. I called the pediatrician’s office to schedule an appointment for J to make sure he didn’t have strep. They gave me an appt at 9:10, which sounded perfect. I could drop S off at school (a special treat for him – the novelty of catching the bus has worn off, and he likes to be dropped off by car whenever we can manage it), and have just enough time to get tot the doctor’s office.

But, as we were getting loaded into the car, I notice that J is missing a shoe.

“Where is your other shoe?”
“I took it off.”
“I can see that; where did you take it off?”, said I while running around the first floor searching for the missing shoe.
“It was pinching my foot.”
“Fine, we can fix that, but where is it?!?”
“I don’t know.”
“Argh! We’re gonna be late, we’ll just have to go with only one shoe!”

So, now we were racing to get S to school in time (we pulled in to an empty drop-off lane, and the one staff member out there said “hurry, the second bell rang, you need to get to your classroom!”

“Yes, I know” I thought to myself, but no time to explain. Now to race to the doctor’s office!

We pulled in at 9:08!!

I carried shoeless J into the office, and he immediately started whining “I don’t want to see this doctor – I don’t want a shot!”

His last visit there was his 4-yr-old checkup, when he got a whole bunch of shots, and he remember it all too well. He insisted that I tell the nurse, “no shots”, which I did. She agreed, “no shots”, but J was not reassured. He made me tell the doctor when she walked in, “no shots”, and she also agreed, “no shots today”. He still wasn’t too convinced, but he let her examine him. Fortunately, the diagnosis, as I expected, was “viral syndrome” – no need for antibiotics. Just home for rest, and fluids, and antipyretics as needed. Which, we are doing now. (And we did find the second shoe in the dining room, under a chair, when we got home).

I wanted to capture the image of the one-shoed state of J when we got home after such a crazy morning of rushing around, and then he asked me to take a movie of his feet. I wasn’t sure what a movie of his one-shoe state would look like. This is the result:
One-shoe dance, by J