I was all set to have eleven long days off. The first Saturday was supposed to start with my husband taking our son to the last swimming lesson of the session--such a nice kick-off to my vacation: getting to sleep in.

But NOOOOOOOOO.....

I drifted off after thinking they had left only to be awakened shortly thereafter by the pitter-patter of four-year-old feet. I asked Rich, "What happened to swimming?"

"He doesn't feel good, and seems to be coughing," was his answer. Here's how my vacation turned out:

Saturday: fever, coughing, no appetite, me spoon feeding oatmeal, Josh vomiting oatmeal, fever, cough, cough. Some very brave friends who had kids who were already coughing anyway came to visit, as did my bother and sister-in-law.

Sunday: coughing, fever, runny nose, no appetite (let the boy starve!), cough, 103.5, "my head hurts," Xopenex nebulizer, cough. My courageous sister-in-law and her boyfriend bring dinner to us. Josh goes to bed at 6:30 pm.

Monday: cough, fever, cough, cough, snot. Josh watches Diego on Netflix all day long. My parents who probably already had the virus come over and bring dinner. A highlight of my day is driving to the drugstore to get cold-fighting supplies to the tune of $80 (and wine for the grown-ups--when did drugstores start carrying alcohol?--genius!).

Tuesday: (Merry Christmas!!) Coughing, fever, runny nose. My husband starts the day off saying he doesn't feel well. He spends much of Christmas morning accused of merely having a hangover from the wine I bought at Rite-Aid, but when he disappears before presents are even open and I find him wrapped in a blanket on the futon, I know I'm in trouble. Lots of helping hands get us through the day.

Wednesday: BOTH son AND husband are coughing, fever, runny nose, cranky. Actually, Joshua's fever is down, but I still take him to the doctor and hide out at my parent's house for the afternoon. Josh falls asleep on our way home at 4:30 pm and transfers to bed and STAYS ASLEEP ALL NIGHT until 7:30 in the morning!!

Thursday: Rich is miserable, Josh's fever comes back. Tea, fluids, honey cough syrup, homeopathic remedies, Motrin. I'm surrounded by coughing. Oh, and it's snowing. A lot.

Part of this vacation was supposed to be a couple-day road trip to visit my grandmother and some other lovely relatives, but that was thwarted by the sicknesses and the fact that my uncle's father is on his deathbed.

While I was making multiple phone calls to said relatives to decide if we should still visit, (because I'm the kind of person who just can't. let. go., even when people are extremely sick and others are actually DYING) I accidentally flooded the ground floor bathroom straight through to the basement because I forgot that I was running water to fill the bathtub since it was snowing and we could lose power and my husband was incapacitated and what if we needed to flush??? 

This led to the adrenaline fueled use of every single towel in my house to mop up the water. Which led to the largest pile of laundry you are likely to have ever seen. I was going to take a photo, but by the time I got in there with my camera, much of it had been folded--by my awesome husband who is THANK GOD feeling better. That pile was about the size of your average sofa. Every time I looked at it, or tossed another heap from the dryer (and had no energy for folding) I'd think to myself, "At least it's clean!"

Friday, Saturday, and Sunday were much improved, so maybe I should have entitled this post "Worst. Half- Vacation. Ever. But where's the drama in that?

I'm just glad everyone's feeling better.