Toddler talk, gotta love it!

"apple, babatue sauce, apple, babatue sauce"
"actually, that's a tomato, that's what ketchup is made from"
"ma-tato's, I never seed a matato before"
"oh, well then I'll show you one at the store next time we go"
"see matatos at da store? OTAY! I wite matatos"

Ha, isn't she cute? Matatos is adorable. Her new thing now is to say "ashully". As in, "do you want ketchup or barbecue sauce?". She says "tetchup, ashully babatue sauce, ashully tetchup, yeah, tetchup". This is the conversation each and every time she has a choice about anything. Shoes. Tights or socks. Water or juice. If it wasn't so darn "tute" I'd go mad.

Speaking of going mad. My brain is speaking to me in baby/toddler talk. I have to watch myself lest I use those toddler words in conversations with adults who don't know my excuse. I said "sanks" to the grocery store clerk last night. I do this with internet language too. I actually laughed "bwahahahaha" yesterday. Like, I enunciated the bwa-ha-ha. Just like I'd type it. Please help me. I think I'm drowning in an alternate universe. If I weren't so broke I'd suggest a moms night out to pull me out of the deep end. I think a MO side mom's night out is due. We went to IL last time :p. Shoot, even just a playdate would be good. Somebody come visit me.

Speaking of visitors, you'd better stay far away. I am absolutely SURE Winnie has strep. The non english speaking doctor at the Urgent care place says no, but she's wrong. That stupid "accurate like 30% of the time" rapid-strep test says no. She has ALL of the symptoms, exactly in order like WebMD says they'll come. She started with a headache, slight sore throat (says it can range from slight to severe), swollen tonsils and lymph nodes in the throat. This is followed by a fever and patchy red or white spots on the throat or inside the cheeks. Skin rash and vomiting may also be present. She got those 2 things after we got home from urgent care. I seriously do not think she got a swab of her throat. Winnie didn't gag at all. You would definately gag if having your tonsils tickled by the swab. Here's how it went down and why I think she let us leave without abx.

We arrive. I tell symptoms. They take temp. Doc comes in, peeks in throat, suggest a rapid strep. I say "if it's negative are you going to give us abx anyway" because if they are then why test??? She says "no, I don't like to give them unless there's a need". I say "ok". Winnie is uncharacteristically freaked about the test. Finally I hold her down and doc swabs. I think she might have gotten inner cheek. I think she knew that she didn't get a good swab but she wasn't going to suggest another one. I'm sure the look on my face was enough to keep her from even suggesting it, lol. BUT, she'd already tied her hands with "no abx unless they're required so she couldn't just give me some anyway, and she couldn't admit that maybe in this instance it would be better to just go ahead with the script (would be against western med rules to admit that possibly they don't know everything all the time). So, when it came negative she had 3 choices, admit she didn't get a good swab and prescribe anyway based on the glaringly obvious symptoms, admits she didn't get a good swap and recommend a repeat, or pretend everything is hunky dory, blame it on a virus, and send us on our way. She chose the latter, obviously.

Unfortunately for me I googled strep throat and discovered that while the abx don't necessarily relieve the symptoms faster for the person currently afflicted, they DO reduce the time of infectiousness (like that word?) from up to 3 WEEKS to 48 hours. I have 3 other children, and we care for 101 year old Granny at least once a week. I would prefer to not have to quarantine ourselves from everyone and their cousin for 3 weeks, especially considering the possibility of multiplying that by 4 if everyone else comes down with it. A week of quarantine I can manage. 4 months? Not so much. Not to mention the complete chaos that would occur if everyone caught it. I shudder at the thought.

So, I put in a call to our regular doc, to whom I will explain the issue and see what she says. Since Winnie has been seen by a doctor I am hoping that they will just go ahead and give me the abx. Otherwise I'm stuck with a possible West family epidemic. Stay tuned.