Canker

Kyla has just not been herself lately. For the past three days, she has eaten barely anything (most unusual for her), has cried nonstop, and hasn't slept well at all. I was trying to figure out what to make of it, and had decided that she must have a touch of the flu (she threw up in her bed a few days ago and woke up covered in dried puke. Sometimes I think I can still smell it). Friday, Jeff was on a pheasant hunting outing (with 10 dentists) and so we thought we'd have a fun night without him, complete with pizza, root beer and popcorn. And High School Musical 3 (that's what he gets for leaving me alone with the kids!). Kyla wouldn't touch her pizza and went to bed, waking up and crying a couple of times during the night. Saturday was more of the same, and I couldn't even get her to eat applesauce! Sunday, we dragged ourselves out of bed to get to 9:00 church and it was only then, when I was hanging out with her in the hall, that I found out the reason why. (The face we've been seeing for days.)


Something in her mouth caught my eye, and when I had her stick her tongue out, I saw that about a fourth of her tongue was white, looking like one MASSIVE canker sore. I don't know why I hadn't noticed before, because it was kind of hard to miss, but I suddenly felt so bad for her. And things started to make sense. It wasn't that she wasn't hungry, but she really COULDN'T eat without a lot of pain. At dinner, she tried a bite of everything, but all she could stand was bread. Grandma took pity on her and gave her a popsicle, and I tried hard to get her to stick it out so I could take a picture, but she doesn't really enjoy it much at all. Imagine a canker sore about the size of a nickel on both sides of her tongue on the left side (where her molars are). I know you can't see it hardly at all, but if you look closely, you can see a tiny bit of white on her left side.

Last night, she woke up about an hour after she had gone to sleep and cried for a little bit. Then she was quiet, so we went to bed. At 10:30 she cried again, and didn't stop this time. Jeff was taking pity on her, and told me to put her in bed with us. If you know Jeff, you know he would never normally suggest this, so he must have really been feeling sorry for her. I put her in bed with me and she slept off and on, waking up and crying every hour or so. Finally, at 3:00, I put her back in her bed and she slept for a bit before doing the whole crying thing again and I brought her back to our room. Needless to say, neither Jeff or I got very much sleep last night and my patience was stretched a little thin today. I am fully aware that Kyla uses her crying to manipulate us, and while I can't say for sure that is what she was doing last night, I am not putting it past her.

She did take a good nap today, and just woke up while I was writing this. I set her at the table with some pudding and just looked over to see her rubbing it on her body and hair like it was a shampoo/body wash combo. You can't see just how much of a mess she made in this picture. Now, she and Allie are in the bath. The fact that she is smiling here gives me hope. Even though she is playing with her food and not eating it.