Strep Throat

Who gets strep throat in the summer? Apparently all of my kids. And all at once. I knew something was wrong last Friday when Davey sobbed and sobbed at bedtime for now apparent reason, but I figured he was just overtired from a long week. Then on Tuesday AJ appeared in our bed around 2am complaining of an ear ache and aching legs. By Thursday, Julia was up for two hours in the middle of the night. After we finally wised up to take them all to the doctor, it turns out that they had a bad case of strep throat. I am dreading winter when all of the sicknesses start coming out of the woodwork.

One of the most difficult things about parenting has been figuring out illnesses. Of course, as babies, they cannot verbalize what is wrong, so it feels like a game of detective trying to figure out if crying is tiredness, teething, illness or a combination of all three. I used to yearn for the day when my kids could talk figuring that they could just tell me what was wrong, but apparently for kids self-diagnosis is also difficult. They just know they feel crummy and can't seem to pinpoint the cause, blaming a tummy ache when they have strep throat. Or after they see that the sick kid gets bubble-gum flavored medicine, they will start to make false reports about their own illness in an effort to getsome of the good stuff. "Uh, my, uh, tummy hurts!" You can practically see the wheels turning in their heads as they angle for some medicine. It reminds me of my brother who used to love the taste of cherry cough syrup. Joe made the mistake one time of not getting the flavoring added at the pharmacy, and he attempted three times to administer medication without it and was wrestling mouths open, I had to make an emergency mom run back to the pharmacy to get the flavoring added. Joe was surprised that they would add the syrup after the medication had already been picked up and used. I asked him if he really thought he was the first parent who had forgotten it. Trust me--the pharmacist saw me returning with two partially empty bottles and said "dad forgot the syrup, huh?"