I Guess Nobody Can't Kiss Me...

Well, here we are in Pittsville, Illinois...and it is living up to it's name...
The kids woke up around 7:30 this morning. Rayna's first words were, "My head hurts, Mommy." She is my drama queen, and frequently declares her back aches, her knees are killing her, etc (whatever she has recently overheard her Mom or Grandma mention)...so, I didn't jump right up and run to her side. Instead, I sent her in the bathroom to change into her clothes. I fixed her hair for the day. I busied myself with packing and straightening our stuff here in the hotel room. All three kids became zombies in front of the TV, managing to find yet ANOTHER episode of "Power Rangers"...what is with Illinois?...is it a non-stop Power Rangers Fest? (Need I interject that I DESPISE the Power Rangers? It is nothing against them personally or individually...it is just that my children are only too happy to emulate their posturing, kicking, sparring. Translation: this show revs up my already HYPERACTIVE children.) So, when, in the very midst of the climax of the Power Rangers episode Rayna again intoned softly, "My head hurts," while reaching up to the base of her skull, I finally took notice. I felt her forehead. Oh no. She felt a little warm...but, I reasoned that I was probably just imagining that and she was probably just being her normal melodramatic self...surely the child could not possibly be febrile after I had spent a small fortune in gas and hotel bill and had driven in the dark through pouring rain for five and a half hours last night (very nearly running out of gas on a deserted portion of Highway 54), just to have to turn around and go home now without seeing my nieces and my sister because my youngest was CONTAGIOUS. Surely not. Surely, surely, surely not. Rayna NEVER gets sick. No one felt the least bit under the weather when we left home yesterday.

I dug the themometer out of our toiletries case. ....Rayna registered at 100.6. Annika (on all sorts of drugs post-liver transplant to prevent any episodes of rejection is totally immuno-suppressed) needs to be protected even more than usual right now as she may be going in for a third transplant soon (needed not because of rejection but because of other complications that have compromised her present liver). Here we are...just two short hours from Normal. Turn around? In the end, I decided we would press on but that we would only stay for a little bit with Dary and I taking turns staying in the van with contagious Rayna. At least then we will get to say "Hello" to my sister and the girls (we will probably miss my brother-in-law as he will be teaching at the University during the day). We can give the girls their birthday presents. Then we head straight on home rather than staying. We won't bring Rayna into the house or around my sister's family at all...so, it shouldn't pose a danger to Anni. It is just disappointing that we won't get to spend the night with them and get a real visit in with them.

After I took Rayna's temp and sadly admitted aloud, "Your temperature is 100.6, Rayna," she looked up at me with her big dark eyes and said wistfully, "I guess nobody can't kiss me, then." Yup, I thought, as I gently brushed her fevered little cheek with a kiss.