one of the beautiful things about parenthood is you just never know what's coming up next.
for example, never in my wildest dreams would i have thought that i would be following up my last words with friends post with a story about words with friends hallucinations. yep, hallucinations. but that's just what happened last night.
liam had the craziest roller coaster ride on tuesday and i still don't know what to make of it. we were off from school on a day when the high didn't climb much past freezing, so i took the kids to see a movie with some friends. riding back from the theater he was in great spirits, recounting his favorite parts of the movie and talking about his basketball practice that night.
and then, a mere half-hour later, he came downstairs in tears to find me. he said he felt awful, and when i took his temperature, it was an alarming 101.6. before i could get any advil into him, he got sick into the toilet and declared that he was fairly certain he was going to die. but he took a nap, and when he awoke, he was fever-free and starving. he ate a huge dinner and worked on his book report and i started to wonder if maybe he had just had an adverse reaction to the popcorn.
the following morning, however, he awoke with a high fever again, so i had no choice but to keep him home. and it was just as well; it was freezing again and i had no plans but to stay home and work. remembering what it was like when i was sick growing up, when i was actually allowed to lie on the couch and watch television, i indulged him with much more screentime than he is normally ever allowed. naturally, he didn't want to play his DS or watch espn or even a movie ... he wanted to play words with friends. and thanks to the blog, he has acquired a new opponent in a college friend of chris's, who has assured me she will be quite kind and perhaps let him win a game or two. (thanks, meg!) he traded turns back and forth and enjoyed texting her in the chat window, along with keeping current with his games with chris (who's in kansas city all week for work) and his aunt leslie.
and then, right when i assumed he was back to normal, the roller coaster dipped again. he sat right next to a space heater at dinner, cranked up to 90 degrees, and was shivering so badly he was rocking in his chair. he dissolved into hysterics before bedtime with sky-high fever yet again.
and this is where it gets frighteningly strange. about an hour or so after falling asleep, i heard him screaming, and when i raced up to his room, i found him looking completely disoriented as he stood in the middle of the floor. "they're everywhere," he muttered over and over again. "make them go away, mommy! why are they here?" he grabbed me tightly and stared out into the air with a terrified look on his sweet soft face.
it took me a long time to figure out what he was talking about. but what i finally surmised was that he was hallucinating. he was actually experiencing febrile hallucinations (thanks, wikipedia) that our pediatrician assured me were actually not that alarming. as soon as his fever subsided, the hallucinations would dissipate, i was told. (and thankfully, they did.)
what was he seeing? you ask. what were floating in the air around his room every time he opened his eyes? life-size yellow squares with letters on them. you know -- those tiles from words with friends.
i said a few days ago that i had created a words with friends monster. turns out i was quite right.
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