Sick

We've all been sick for a few weeks now.

First, the flu came to visit, hitching along with my nephew when my sister came to town. All 4 boys got it, and of course it turned into bronchial infections for 3 of them, requiring doctor visits and "breathing treatments".

Each child (and sometimes each family) seems to have a default illness. Some kids get ear infections (my nephew gets them if you look at him funny). Some get strep throat. My guys get bronchial infections. We keep albuterol in the medicine closet. We even have our own nebulizer and kids inhaler, and both have seen heavy use in the past 2 weeks.

We also have some prescription eye drops in the closet, because Jonah and Sam seem to get pink eye at the drop of a hat. If they get anything else that causes a fever, they'll get pink eye.

They weren't all sick at once, which may be a blessing or a curse. A blessing, because one whiny kid at a time is bad enough. And keeping track of Motrin, Tylenol, eye drops, and breathing treatments for one child already requires a spreadsheet. Doing this for all four would probably need a customized database.

But it would be nice if they all did the 4-day sick thing for the same 4 days, instead of dragging it out for weeks. Just when you question whether or not you'll be able to make it through the 8th daily viewing of Finding Nemo, along comes another slightly-warmer-than-normal body to encamp on the couch. At least they like different movies.

On top of all this, allergy season has started. I've been alternating between Benadryl, Sudafed, and Claritin D for the past week, trying to find one that will allow me to stay coherent. It's difficult to help someone troubleshoot software problems when the pink elephants come marching through the office and start pelting me with marshmallow zepplins.

I'm used to allergy season. It's always been rough for me. In college I used to just stay in bed for a week. This is where a 5-pound box of CheezIts comes in handy. I can't do that now.

But now it looks like at least a few of the boys have inherited their father's inability to deal with pollen. My poor wife. Will she have to deal, in Springtimes to come, with 5 Benadryl snores every night? One hopes not.

You would think that this spate of illness would leave us in some kind of quarrantine. Not so. Again, birds of a feather. One night last week we went out for pizza with Jonah and Stephen couging all over the place. We told our friends that the boys were sick, but they didn't care. They said their kids were sick too, so off we went.

And the one night when all 4 boys were in coughing fits, two of my wife's sisters decide to come over for dinner and bring their kids. We tried to wave them off, but they didn't care either. Nine screaming, coughing, runny-eyed kids romping madly through the house.

I made soup (see below).

So, by now, the boys are mostly better. Timothy still has a minor fever, Jonah is still couging a little, and Sam has some junk in his eye every now and then. But they can play now and are feeling chipper, etc.

And it's my turn. Itchy, watery eyes, runny nose, cough and sneezing. Ah, well.

As to how my medications are doing, please see the list below:

• Sudafed: lucid but still leaky
• Claritin D: dry but woozy, lots of typos
• Benadryl: asleep