He didn't seem phased when he was the center of attention and everyone was singing Happy Birthday to him and watching/laughing while he ate his cake. (He gets that from his dad.)
But we were a little worried how all that sugar would make him later,
especially since it was his first taste of sugar. Ever.
The first problem we had was Will had an allergic reaction to the cake. Obviously, there were no peanuts in the cake, and since that's his only known allergy, we didn't think there would be a problem. I left the room while Will ate most of his cake (I don't remember why, exactly...talking to people, I'm sure), but Wayne was in there with him. It wasn't long before Wayne was calling me in there with a bit of urgency in his voice. Will's poor arms were covered in the largest whelps I've ever seen. We quickly gave him some Zyrtec, and Wayne took him straight up to the bathtub. Most people had already left at this point, and Will was (not surprisingly) acting very sleepy when Wayne brought him back down from the bath. His arms were already getting better, and he didn't seem at all bothered by the reaction.
By the time it was bedtime, poor Will was falling asleep in my arms. But who could blame him? It had been a long, exciting/exhausting day, and he hadn't napped since 9am that morning. We put him to bed, and went to bed early ourselves. We hadn't been asleep 30 minutes before Will woke up crying/screaming in a way we knew something was wrong. Wayne went in his room and called me in there. The poor guy was burning up with a fever. After some Tylenol and snuggles from both of us, I was able to rock him back to sleep.
The next morning, he awoke with a fever again.
We kept the fever down with Tylenol throughout the day, and I alerted the other moms who had been at the party in case he had something that was contagious. Each time he ate that day, we noticed some red spots appearing on his face and arms. We gave him some Benedryl because we assumed it was still from the allergic reaction to the cake.
The next morning (Monday, his actual birthday) he awoke looking like this.
I called his pediatrician and we got an appointment that morning.
The spots were all over his face, hands, arms and feet.
When she looked at him, she said, "I bet I'll find some spots in his mouth... yep." He had hand, foot and mouth disease, not to be confused with hoof and mouth disease. She said it was similar to chicken pox in that it's extremely contagious almost every child gets it. When I asked if Wayne and I could get it, she said we probably already had it as children. Of course, I felt awful that we'd just had all those kids over and exposed them to it, so I let all the moms know the diagnosis. All but two of the kids at his party ended up getting it. Some of the other kids didn't get any visible spots, so they never would have known what the fever was caused from if they hadn't gone to the doctor. The doctors can see the sores in their mouths, but us moms couldn't see them.
A week later, I took Will back to the pediatrician for his one-year check-up.
It was then that she told me Will had the worst case of HF&M she'd ever seen.
The fever didn't come back after Sunday, and within a couple of days, Will was feeling better. The spots and blisters hung around for a few weeks before they all finally went away. Honestly, I was a little worried some might leave scars, but thankfully they didn't.
We still don't know what caused the allergic reaction to the cake. Will has had dairy (in cheese and yogurt) and eggs, the two main allergy culprits in cake, and has been fine. His pediatrician said it could have been from the food coloring in the icing, but we might not ever know for sure. We're just happy the reaction wasn't any worse.
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