There are times in your life that you just wish would never end and there are other times that just make you want to end it all.  The past month was closer to the latter than the former, that's for sure.

Our youngest, Caden, is normally a very healthy child, but that was not the case this month.  We were attending one of Jackson's wrestling matches and Caden was being his busy self, getting into everything he shouldn't.  All of the sudden, he stopped playing and wanted to sit in mine my and Colette's lap.  Very unusual!  Then the temperature started to rise.  It peaked at 104° F and stayed there for the better part of 12 days.  On day 6, we arrived at the Emergency Room at 6 AM after having survived the 4th straight night of no sleep.  We went in for precautionary reasons, since we were pretty sure it was just a nasty virus kicking his butt.  They took blood and mucus samples and sent them off for testing.  After a round of normal ibuprofen and all negative results, we headed back home to suffer through the weekend.  The fever was still there on day 10, so into the radiologist we went for a chest x-ray.  You haven't lived until you've tried to get a sick kid to hold still for a chest x-ray.  By day 12, the fever was much milder and the drugs worked at keeping him cool much longer.

During the first week of sickness, Colette made it into the office for 4 hours and I was able to get about 12 hours worth of work done.  So much for storing up that vacation for something fun in the summer.  So Caden got well in time to have his second birthday party on the 20th.  Overall, things went pretty well, if not a little subdued for one of our shindigs.  The Nathan's cocktail weenies in Iron Chef' General Tso's sauce were a HUGE hit that required no effort.  The only negative of the party was that one of my niece's girls and one of my nephew's showed up not feeling so hot, and of course Caden played with her for a large portion of the party.

Everything was OK until Wednesday night when Caden started to have a stuffy nose and a little bit of a cough.  By Friday, he developed another fever to go with his full blown head cold.  Things didn't get any better by Tuesday, so it was off to the doctor's office again.  The nurse practitioner said it looked like someone had taken a red magic marker and colored the inside of his ear.  Yep, Caden had an ear infection.  We started him on amoxicillin, but he still never made it back far enough to go back to the baby sitter's house.  At least this time he had a problem that drugs could actually help heal.

All told, Caden was only well enough to be around others for 7 of the 21 non-holiday weekdays in the month.  While .333 might be a great batting average in the majors, it sucks when you are trying to get real work done.  Here's to hoping that February is much better in the health department.  I am not sure it can possibly be any worse, short of having something that requires a long term hospital stay.