And so it begins ...

Well, then. Remember how I spoke about "cautious optimism" with regard to Little Miss Kickboxer and any potential MMR vaccine reactions?

You can stick that optimism somewhere where the sun don't shine.

Today at 10 am, our fabulous daycare provider called to let me know that my angelchild is sporting a rash all over. When her mom saw it, she immediately blurted out "Three-Day Measles" aka rubella (we're all about the technical terms around here). So, I called the pediatrician and brought our little sunshine in at 1:45.

In other news: If you have a toddler but no android phone, hie thyself to an android phone store, get one, and download the socks match app, then the "toddler lock" app, and then a few episodes of Little Einsteins, and nothing, NOTHING will ever phase you.

As expected, the good doctor diagnosed a viral rash as a consequence of the MMR shot, but said that, since the viruses injected into my little daughter's body were not wild, but attenuated, there really wasn't any problem with her returning to the daycare--unless she was going to be around any immunosuppressed children with cancer or lupus or HIV. Well, not the case in our case. I took Little Miss Kickboxer back to the daycare, returned to work, did my whatever little I do these days, and then picked her up again.

As we usually do, we walked to the playground, chattering about all sorts of toddlerish things--you know, the dogs along the way, the trees and the pinecones in them, the birds, all that. And the fact that there was no pokey at the doctor's today. Just looking.

And then, Little Miss Kickboxer ran around, after me, before me, with me, we let ourselves fall into the thick grass, slid down the slides, climbed up the climbing wall. Until she didn't make it up all the way and almost fell if I hadn't caught her. And then she started to cry about her arms. She didn't even want to walk home; I carried all 36.8 pounds of her sobbing toddler-softness for about a mile. There was no consoling her--not at home, not even with cheese or her favorite snap pea crunchies, or fishsticks or peas. Nothing. She cried, squirmed, and screamed that her arms were hurting. My first assumption that she may have bruised something when she slid down the climbing wall soon turned into the assurance that the rash on her arms, now really pronounced, was itching the hell out of her little mind. So, I ran to grab a cold wet washcloth, some calamine lotion, and some tylenol, and went to work. You should have seen the expression in her face When the desired effect set in! All she said for a while--even ditching her favorite Little Einsteins--was "thankyou mommy! Thankyou mommy!" And yeah, so the itch and whatever fever might set in was taken care of.

But man, am I going back on my decision!

I'm praying to all that is holy that this is it--a little bit of an uncomfortable rash with a low-grade fever.

I fear, I really really fear at this point the big ones, the bad ones. The brain swelling, the encephalopathy, the subsequent behavioral changes, all that.

I'm worried.