It sucks to be sick

All last week, Austin was sick with a cold. He had a non-stop cough, a runny nose and, for a couple of days, was running a slight fever as well. And he was downright miserable. So, like a good mom, I spent all week taking care of him as he kept looking at me as if saying, "mom, this sucks, make it go away."

By Thursday morning he appeared to be on the mend, and I started to get a sore throat. By Friday morning, he was happier than he had been all week (although still snotty) and Ryan started losing his voice. By Saturday morning, Austin was up and running, and Ryan and I could barely bring ourselves to get out of bed -- except maybe to get a box of Kleenex.

Never before have Ryan and I both been sick at the same time. But never before has their been a third person in the house to share germs with.

Being sick at the same time posed a whole new set of challenges. When Austin was sick he wanted me to hold him and rock him to sleep -- but now that we were sick, he wasn't about to do the same. And he sure as heck wasn't going to stop trying to get into things just because we were complaining we were congested. But somehow, we managed to keep him out of trouble.

Other than a short trip to the Bay right after lunch, we spent the entire day rotating between the couches in the living room and the couches in the family room. And somehow, Austin managed to entertain himself for hours. We lay on the couch and watched him play with his toys, walk along the furniture, bang on the TV, try to figure out how to use the DVD player, empty the bookshelf of books and pull all the CDs off the shelf before repeating the entire process over again. (It's amazing the stuff you let your kid get into when you don't have the energy to get up and say 'no'.) And every now and then, one of us would get ahold of him to wipe his nose.

In all, it didn't turn out as badly as I feared it would. And today was a little better, because although we both still felt crummy, we had a little more energy.

The worst part ended up being because all three of us were tearing through the Kleenex, we decided it would be wise not to go to our friend's annual Carribean Christmas blocko. It's always a really great party and we were looking forward to it. But instead of sipping fruity blender drinks, we stayed home, sipping NeoCitran.