Summer 2011: Recovered! and 4th of July

So, last post I mentioned that Elijah had a fever. It persisted, and he complained of a sore throat so by Thursday, we took him to the pediatrician. He was diagnosed with a viral infection called "enterovirus," which causes similar symptoms as strep throat but is untreatable, since it's a virus. The doc warned us these infections can take quite a few days to work themselves through. He wasn't kidding. Day after day of temperature-taking, ibuprofen-forcing and plan-cancelling really took its toll on us. Elijah was worse every day, running a fever as high as 104.5 sometimes. He had such a sore throat that I had to beg him to drink, and he hardly ate a thing. He slept long stretches of the day and was quite restless at night. It was terrible.

Finally, 6 days later, Elijah was still running a fever but seemed to be feeling a bit better. He was pretty active during the day and wasn't even interested in a nap. He didn't really want to play outside, though, so our challenge was keeping him occupied. We painted.
And worked some play-dough.

An finally, after dinner, he really did seem more like himself. So we headed out for a creemee. It was SO GREAT to get out of the house. On our drive home, we saw that someone was giving away this "Cozy Coupe" car for free, so we snagged it. Doesn't Elijah look like a younger Wayne in this picture? And, happiest of all, we were able to keep our Independence Day plans! This morning, we headed to see the Richmond parade.

Afterwards, Chris and Martha were kind enough to host a barbecue. We got to spend some great time with them, as well as Alexandra, Peter, Christa, Asa, Hazel, Mary and Jacob!

A Meeting of the Minds: talking about their experiences in small claims court. Alex can't believe how long this conversation is dragging on. She looks like she'd rather be just about anywhere else...Beautiful Hazel!

The weather, company and Elijah's health made this the most fabulous July 4th ever!!!