So, this week, Joel and I have the boys. We started it off with a bang and are ending it on a whimper. Sunday through Tuesday, we were in Vancouver, British Columbia – enjoying the sites and visiting with friends and family. It was awesome and I’ve already written up 2/3′s of that blog. Just need to finish it and add pictures. We came home Tuesday night so that the boys could go to their swim lesson that evening. As Dexter was climbing into bed, he turned to Joel and I and stated, “I have a cold.” Oh. That’s new. He’s never really said that before. It was curious because he wasn’t showing any signs of being sick.

The next day, I had made reservations to go to Jetty Island – all four of us. The weather turned south, meaning cloudy and cold – not good beach weather. Dexter still insisted he did not feel well and didn’t want to go. He and Joel built train tracks at home while Nicky and I built sand castles on Jetty Island that morning. When we returned, Dexter was definitely off and felt like he had a mild fever. Being parents, we immediately started the Tylenol dosing. By bedtime, Dexter clearly felt really crappy. They both went down around 7:45pm. Around 9:00pm, all hell broke loose. Dexter woke up and completely lost it. Ran around the whole house crying, wouldn’t let us help, wouldn’t tell us what was wrong – it was awful. We tried TV, Dumbo, a new train. Nothing worked to break through. The tantrum finally ended when he ran back upstairs to bed, got in bed and continued to cry until and sat down and started reading Bernstein Bear stories. Finally he fell asleep and Nicky woke up. He wanted to hear more stories.

At 3:45am, Dexter started to wail again. This time he puked many times too. The new carpet needed to be broken in at some point in time, I guess. He rejected all medicine and finally told us his throat hurt.

7:30am – boys give up on us coming into their bedroom and instead come to ours. Dexter looks bad. Won’t talk. Won’t eat. I finally cajole him into letting look into his throat with a flashlight. I see white nodules. That must be bad, right? I call the doctor. We go in. Yep, it’s Strep. Bleach everything he has had contact with. Do you know how many plastic toys we have out right now? All the trains, the cars, the Playmobil house, wooden blocks, etc…… Crap. Nicky has already been playing with most of the toys Dexter played with. I’ve been scratching my eyes out due to allergies and I was the one puked on the night before.

Now we are waiting to see who will catch it next – Nicky, Joel or I. Oh, or Michelle, who joins the hot zone tomorrow night. Welcome to the infectious zone Michelle. Frequent hand washing is a must right now.