It was stalking us. An almost-cold. Lurking around. Causing sniffles here and there for more than a week now. Nearly two in fact. It followed my husband home from work. Sneaky thing (the cold not my husband).

Friday things really began to turn. Hubby was really pokey. The wee one was awfully grumpy. And so, we postponed our plans to go to the movies. We all agreed we would try to make a go of it Sunday. The rest of the day the boys kind of just rolled around the house. From one room to another. Trying to find something to do that didn’t require too much thought. Or effort. It was an early night.

Saturday started out okay. The wee one spent the whole night in his own bed (hooray – the last couple of weeks have been rough, he has had painful growing pains which have kept him up at night and in our bed) and seemed quite chipper. Could this have been a 24-hour thing? Even hubby seemed a bit improved. But he still had that pesky dry cough. Hmm.

The little guy played and lounged throughout the day. Hubby puttered around the house. I did my usual drill-sergeant-detail-oriented-chicken-with-its-head-cut-off-in-a-hurricane-tornado thing. J But as the day wore on my guys began to wear down. They popped next door to do a couple runs on the neighbour’s homemade luge track/slide. I knew we were going to be in trouble when the wee one wanted to go home prematurely. That kid could live outdoors in any weather, so I knew something was up when he requested to “go in.”

Suddenly my normally awesome kiddo was entering something beyond the witching hour blues. Okay. Food and bed. His own. Though something told me he would end up in ours before too long. And he did. Though it was somewhere around 4 am. He coughed a lot. Then fell back to sleep between us.

SUNDAY, SUNDAY, SUNDAY

I am typically an early riser. Always have been. Even as a kid. Sunday was no different. But when I woke up I could tell the boys were going to wake up sick.

So, I got up and took the pup out for some pre-dawn ball in our still unfamiliar backyard. It was lovely. Cold. But lovely. I look forward to making the space ours. How exciting! I hope the plants and seeds I brought from our old place adapt to this new one. Oh. How I miss my gardens. But I have already had so many neat nature experiences here that I am truly stoked for the coming months. Sorry. Garden-nerd-gasm complete.

Anyways.

It was cold so in we went. The human males of the house were still sleeping. No surprises there. The hockey game had yet to begin, so I had time to make a coffee. Not that it mattered. I would not be watching (for reasons I may address in a later post). However, I did want to know what was going on: coffee, news station, and laptop. GO CANADA GO!

Then I enjoyed a few quiet hours to myself. Tidied the kitchen. Squeezed in a shower. Then. They woke up. Both of them. SICK. Both of them.

THE GAME CHANGER

My poor baby was really sick. Screw the old man! My kiddo had a fever. And it scared the shit out of me. It was a doozy. It was high. He had never had anything beyond a low-grade fever in his four years on the planet. Nothing like this at all. I kid. Not about my concern for my wee one, but about screwing my husband.

Stop. *Giggle*

Okay, back on track.

I felt bad for both of them. There would be no movie redo today. Instead there were a lot of cuddles and coughing. Snuggles and sniffling. Homemade chicken soup. It was to be a day of balancing my usual daily tasks with my new-found profession in medicine.

Mommy! I need COLD water. Really COLD. Burr. From the fridge.

The wee one hollered. His demands peppered with a dry, hacking cough.

Umm. Manners?

I holler back.

PUH-lease. May I have some COLD water puh-lease?

His response came in a syllabic manner. But he DID use his manners. So. Water it was. My husband danced on the line all day. He was really unwell but could not commit to a day in bed with the wee one watching kid movies. I delivered the water, received my thanks and resumed whatever it was I was doing.

While the two of them rested (they partook in a nice long afternoon nap) I managed to accomplish quite a lot. I cleaned some more. I wrote. I read. I researched. Planned. And then I baked six dozen cookies. I even toyed with the idea of cracking a beer. A few sips. Solo. But the boys woke up.

Punch the clock. Back to work. Happily.

Once up and rolling, both honeys seemed improved. Little honey’s fever was much better (phew!) and BIG honey looked better. So they peeled themselves off and out of those sheets. Up and mobile. At least for now.

Something that did not improve was my little guy’s appetite. He still didn’t want to eat anything. Apparently this is quite common with a fever. But my guy is an eater. And watching him NOT eat was freaking me out. When bedtime rolled around he had managed to consumer a quarter of an apple, in addition to plenty of liquids. Namely really COLD water.

It was my intention to quarantine my two honeys that night. After spending most of the day vegged out watching movies in our room I figured it would be best to return them to that state after dinner. Drug them. And leave them to sleep it off. But when grown-up bedtime happened upon us, the wee one woke up and demanded we all get in (demanded is a bit strong, what he said was, there is plenty of room in here and gently patted either side of him).

Every other day of the week is fine…

Sunday night was nearly uneventful. A lot of coughing and wheezing from the boys. Then I heard a familiar sound. I got up and went looking for the cat. I figured it was my furry friend’s guttural noises that often accompany a cat barf episode. There. I found him. Sleeping on a chair. Hmm. Not him. Strange. I was sure that was what I had heard. I lay back down. A few moments pass. The noise returns.

The next thing I know my face is covered in vomit. The wee one literally puked in my face. Mostly water. A couple undigested bits of apple. Lovely. One of my most favourite things to do at 4:30 am is laundry. Oh, and clean barf off of my face. Poor guy. He felt really, REALLY bad.

I’m sorry I barfed in your mouth Mommy. Was it an accident? Are you okay? I’m sorry Mommy.

He was so concerned.

Sweetie it is totally fine. You are sick. That’s what happens when you’re sick. Please don’t worry about it.

Thankfully it was a singular episode. Thankfully he also fell back to sleep.

Monday. The wee one’s fever was completely gone. Hooray! But only a small victory. The boys still had that dazed and confused glow that accompanies a cold like this.

I had to pop out and run a couple of errands. It is my aunt’s birthday next week and she lives down in Missouri, so I wanted to get her card in the mail. I wasn’t gone very long. Just had to slip around the corner. But in my brief absence something happened. The cold that had been lurking in the shadows of my house was now here with me. In the car. Trapped. Nowhere to go. It had me. It was a wee cough. Nothing I would have normally worried myself with had it not left me with a throat full of razor blades.

Big honey knew it. He had a genuine look of poor you when I arrived home. And from there it all went downhill for me. Energy slowly draining. Coughing. Sneezing. And then the worst of it. It hit me last night while I was making some notes. THE CONFUSION. I was struggling to piece together the weekend that had just passed. I could not keep up with the program my hubby was watching on the television. Oh no.

And that was it.

Now I am sick.