Taking The Night Off, Pestilence, And Other Adventures In Parenting

Night before last, I took the night off.  It's a form of therapy for me, just taking care of myself for a few hours.  The way it works is, I'll take off on a random weekday night after making dinner and tossing it at the fam. The Daddy is home from work at that point, and takes over the parenting. Then, I drive to town (I know, I know. My inner hick is showing) and spend the night in a hotel. And, I come home VERY early in the morning around the time the older kids are getting ready for school. So what if it's only 12 hours? It's 12 hours just. for. me.!! And it doesn't happen often, maybe 2 or 3 times a year. But, I LOVE it!

This time, it was especially nice because I had a sick #3 that had come home from school that morning with the flu (we thought), and there were excessive amounts of bickering going on as I exited my home, overnight bag in hand. There may or may not have been little thoughts of "See ya, sucker!" directed at the Daddy, but I will neither confirm nor deny on that point. That was at 6pm on Monday.

Fast forward to 7am Tuesday. I am home. I am pleasant. I am rested and ready to conquer the world. Okay, fine. I'm home and I'm awake, but that's about it. As soon as I pull up to the house, the Daddy is in the open front doorway, motioning for me to hurry my jiggly posterior up to the house. Again: it's morning. I'm awake, but that's about it. And I am not amused with the increasingly urgent "MOVE YOUR JIGGLY POSTERIOR" motions coming from the Daddy in the doorway, prior to my first cup of coffee, and following an hour long drive back home. I swear to you, if it had been because he couldn't find the coffee filters or socks for #5, there would have been blood spatter and prison time involved.

We'll skip a few details and move on. I get in the house, where various members of my family are scattered about, vaguely resembling a crime scene, with #3 playing the part of the criminal that everyone is surrounding. I cannot stress enough that this is prior to the first coffee of the day. Keep this in mind. I'm not real quick in the morning.

The Daddy says, "Look at your son!"
And I say (rather intelligently, I might add), "I'm looking at him. What?!"
and the Daddy says, "Caryn. Look. At. Your. Son!!!"
And I say, somewhat testily, "I AM LOOKING AT.... oh, holy crap. Um. Yeah. Got it."

Overnight, #3 broke out in the most bizarre, scary looking rash I have ever seen. It's what comes to mind when reading about pestilence in the bible. At this point, suddenly it was time for everyone to go to school, and I swear I could hear "See ya, sucker!" coming from the Daddy's brain.

We'll fast forward again through the boring parts, and now we're at our local clinic. The PA comes in the room, and without batting an eyelash says, "I know what you have. Scarlet Fever. It's going around."  And then he proceeds to culture #3's throat while I have heart palpitations and pick myself up off the floor. Medical people should really think about what their words do to mothers.  The problem is, the culture comes back negative. And his white blood count does not indicate scarlet fever. Although he DOES have a fever of 102. So, the PA trots back to his office to do some research. And comes back quite a while later with a very humongous book of pediatrics. And he looks at #3, and flips a few pages. And looks at #3 and flips a few pages. And says, "I got nothin'. I don't know what you have. I'm sending you to town to doctor #2. And also, could you have doctor #2 call me and tell me what his diagnosis is, 'cuz I really wanna know!" This is actually fine, because doctor #2 is our pediatrician, and is buckets of uber awesomeness.

The Daddy got the pleasure of taking #3 to the pediatrician, and I played the part of the Guilt Queen at home. "THIS is what happens when I leave my family. There is PESTILENCE! I KNEW I should have stayed home like a good Momma and taken care of him. But I didn't. And NOW he has PESTILENCE!"

Hours and hours and HOURS later, the Daddy comes home with #3 and says, "Well, doctor #2 says this is just like what he's been seeing in his office all week, only it's different. But it's a virus. And it has to run it's course..unless #3's eyes start oozing goop. And then it's not a virus anymore and that's bad. Also, it's contagious. And he can't go to school for the rest of the week. Oh, and doctor #2 doesn't know what it is either, but he's seen it a lot. But this one is different."

This, people, is why the Daddy should never, ever be allowed to take a monster to the doctor. So I said, "Does the pestilence #3 has, have a name?" and the Daddy said, "Yep! It's a virus! Just like *I* said it was!" and I asked, "Did you get a doctors' note for school?" and the Daddy said, "Nope. You didn't tell me to." and I said, "Um. So, it's contagious, and we have a Logan with the immunity of a flea.... shouldn't I be banishing #3 to his room until his fever breaks?" and the Daddy, may he rest in peace, said "Nope. It will make Logan stronger if he has to deal with viruses."

So, here I am, at 4:50 am Wednesday, telling you all about our adventures, and at the same time explaining why there has been no silliness on the blog this week. Also, my cell phone died mid adventure, so today I need to reassure my parents and #3's school administrators that apparently,  while the pestilence is scary and contagious, as long as there is no eye goop, #3 will be back in school next week, no worse for wear. Or something like that. Maybe I should just call the pediatrician in a few hours and get the whole story from HIM....

No Daddies were harmed in the making of this blog post. But they SHOULD have been.

Images in this post from the Google images.