The Plague

Have you seen those movies where the soldiers are calmly marching through the forest, and then a group of enemy snipers starts picking them off one by one? And there's that one soldier who is the last to get hit, and he's running around in a complete panic? I'm that last soldier.

Here's how it all went down. Tuesday was supposed to be Jonas's first day of pre-school. So last Friday we took him for his 18 month well visit. They should just call them "not well for long" visits. Because Monday morning, like clockwork, Jonas came down with a fever. He was miserable for Monday and Tuesday. And I had just recently been thinking to myself, "it has been a long time since one of the children was sick." I was afraid to say it out loud to anyone, but apparently the thought itself was jinx enough.

We breathed a sigh of relief when Jonas seemed to be on the mend. And then Tuesday night it struck Scotlen. Except it wasn't just a fever - it was fever plus vomit. The poor thing kept nothing down from Tuesday night until Thursday morning. I've been looking online for my new merit badge of motherhood though. I don't think you're a real mother until your child has vomited directly into your face. I was shocked and grossed out, to be sure, but not wanting to hurt Scotlen's feelings, I merely said "oh!'. Like, "oh, there's a butterfly." It's very funny in retrospect.

So Scotlen had to miss her last day of school and her last dance class. But we breathed another sigh of relief when she started eating real food again Thursday afternoon. Big mistake. Kyle came home from his hair appointment Thursday evening and jumped into bed, shivering. His temperature was 103.3. As of Saturday afternoon, he's still not feeling well.

And I'm just waiting to be the next casualty. The odds are slim to none that I escape this onslaught unscathed.

Jonas did manage to have his first day of school on Thursday. The drop-off was easy - he ran right over and started playing. No tears when I left, which was a little disappointing, to be honest. I got a call when he was into his school career for approximately an hour - apparently Jonas had been crawling on something and fell off and hit his head. Just a little bruise, they said. I did not know that such events warranted phone calls. I pointed out that it would match his other bruises. We also received a written "incident report" from the school. I hope they have a big folder for that boy's file. When I arrived to pick Jonas up, he was hand-feeding Cheerios to the little girl sitting beside him. My thought should have been, "how sweet," but instead I just wondered what germs the little petri dish was carrying.

Poor girl

Ready to leave for school

Fun at the park

Fun at the park