Lucy had a fever all weekend. It is gone now. She is plucky and giggly, just like she was before the fever started. I am kind of tired from my hyper vigilant temperature checking. Fevers are my least favorite of the veritable buffet of childhood ick and sick symptoms. Barfing is no fun, of course. Nobody likes to wash linens over and over. Snotty noses are no prize either. But neither scares me like a fever.
It may be that I placed too much stock in the Little House on the Prairie books I read as a kid. The older sister or maybe the younger gets a fever and goes blind. I know, I know, there was no Children’s Motrin on the prairie. I am pretty sure that prairie children didn’t receive a battery of vaccinations either, but logic and chemistry don’t make me any less fearful of a fever. My fear addled brain wakes me up every hour to pad in and feel little Lucy’s forehead (as though my palm and fingers are highly calibrated thermometers with blindness alerts built in) to make sure that she hasn’t burned up and gone blind in the night. Once again, fear beats logic when mothering is at hand.
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