Dis Ease

Dutch is sick. She has a fever, and she took a very long mid-afternoon nap. Just the fact that she fell asleep at home, without any effort on our part, is a major signal that something's wrong. She seems okay - she's playing in her room now - but she's blazingly hot. Dutch doesn't get sick very often. Every time she gets sick with anything but an ordinary cold, I act pretty casual about it, and I truly do believe that most childhood illnesses are no big deal, but in my secret parent-heart I am convinced that she's mortally ill, and that this is the beginning of a rapid decline leading to certain death. She had a scary vaccination reaction once (at least it was scary to us, and made me pretty mad at a medical establishment that dismisses as a "mild side effect" the experience of having your floppy and fiery-feverish 15-month-old vomit repeatedly in the middle of the night) , and I was absolutely convinced she was going to die within hours. Perhaps I should not read parenting magazines.