Fever, Day Six

Still holding steady at 102.2. The rash is in full bloom on your chest and back and neck. Our sheets are spotted with spilled breast milk and Ibuprofen liquid drops and snot and urine (you like to pee when we take your temp.) Your eyes look bleary and you've got snot crusted around your nostrils. You're wearing your pink pajamas with the panda faces on the toes. While I read "The Happy Man and His Dump Truck" or "Thank You, God!" you tug absentmindedly at the panda ears or at a tuft of hair above your left ear. You don't have much interest in your choo-choo or your mailbox or your dump truck. Sometimes I can seduce you with my wallet and its dozen plastic laminated cards. But this morning you just wanted to read or to lay on the floor with Mr. Meow. I keep hoping this is the kind of exhaustion that comes with getting better. I am tired of this worry. Tired of pressing my lips to your forehead a thousand times a day. Tired of making sure I know at every moment where the Ibuprofen and thermometer are located.