Poor Eliza has been very sick!

We made a tent to help pass the inside-sick-day time!

She had a cold for about a week, just an upper respiratory thing with no fever, but I kept her home from school last Monday just to try to help her keep her reserve up, and I was recovering from Thrush (yeah, didn't know adults got that too!).

Then last Friday, after playing at the park, she took my hand and told me that she wasn't feeling well and was ready to go home, which seemed unusual but I thought maybe she was just tired. When we got home, I turned on a show for her, and she lay there under a blanket with her head on her penguin pillow, not moving for easily a half hour!! Very un-eliza-like! I kept checking on her to see if she was really awake. She was, though.

That night about a half hour after she fell asleep, I heard her crying loudly and went into her room to find her holding one of her ears and moaning, "It hurts! It hurts! Ow!" It was soo sad to hear her and see her like that. I gave her some tylenol, and she woke up one more time just crying and moaning about how much she hurt. It was terrible!

Then next morning Eliza was able to go into the clinic and see the most amazing nurse

practitioner in the world, her Oma! Turned out that Eliza had one mean looking ear infection in her left ear AND thrush!! The sores had been hiding UNDER her tongue, and they look sooo terrible!

On Saturday afternoon, in an attempt to convince her to take some medicine, I turned off the TV and took away the IPAD and said she could watch another show once she took her medicine. She went up to her room. After a few minutes, I didn't hear anything so I went upstairs and she had climbed into her bed and fallen asleep! This is NOT Eliza!!! Never has she just put herself down for a nap (or to bed). She did the same thing on Sunday too, only on the couch. So I know she is really feeling sick!

I feel so terrible because I know she caught the thrush from me! With my thrush I couldn't eat for days and my gums swoll up so painfully, and it felt like pins and needles were stabbing into my gums constantly! I couldn't even eat muffins or croissants without hurting! And very cold liquids felt like stabbing pains too. So now Eliza starts sobbing any time she puts anything in her mouth besides water. It's so sad. She's barely eaten anything at all the past two days!!! Her fever and earache have subsided for the most part at least!

She's headed over to her dad's house tomorrow because I can't miss any more work, but my heart is breaking for her! What's worse is that it is a huge battle just getting her to even take any of her medicine! Unfortunately it hasn't worked to just sit down and explain to her rationally that if she wants to get better and stop hurting, she needs to take some yucky tasting medicine that hurts to put in her mouth. Apparently it worked better when Steve told her she could jump on him if the medicine tasted bad. I guess she was too busy sobbing to actually take him up on the offer after she took the medicine, though, so Steve lucked out there! I've been trying regular old bribery and removal of privileges. Boring me!

It's especially bad luck, though, that this sickness hit on Halloween weekend. She missed out on several parties due to being so ill. She was devastated to find out that she missed the annual Pine Island Halloween Carnival on Friday, so Steve and I went ahead and had her get dressed up tonight and took her trick or treating so she wouldn't totally miss out on the halloween experience that she's been so looking forward to for months! She had us carry her the whole time, and she could barely manage to say "Trick or Treat" around her swollen mouth! So sad. You can tell from the picture that she was DEFINITELY not feeling like herself!

But still a beautiful Rapunzel princess!

Here's hoping she feels better very soon! Keep her in your prayers, please!