White Lightning Axiom: Redux

I am certainly happy that yesterday is over! As usual, children with illnesses are the most exhausting thing on the planet. I left work shortly after noon in order to get home in time for the appointment at the clinic. The Turnpike traffic was very light, but I knew better than to try and brake the speed of light. I got home with sufficient time left to make our 1310 appointment. We did encounter a raft of characters pretending to drive their cars on the way, however. It seems that you have two periods in the day where the loonies come out, 1000-1600 and 2100-0400. Standard. We got to the clinic at 1300 with no great difficulty except for the fact that the parking lot was very full. We had to crush some smaller imports to make space for the family tank. Those coopers make a funny noise when they know that they will soon be grease beneath our treads.

As everyone knows, the pediatrician's office is not someplace you go when you are in a hurry. Our 1310 appointment soon became a 1330 appointment. Then, we were left in the examination room till 1400 before we saw anyone. The children, missing their nap, nearly exploded by having to wait in the room. Alexis was on the verge of a total meltdown when the Physicians Assistant finally came. Not a doctor or a pediatrician. An assistant. I surely hope she is at least has an RN certification. In any event, after a few moments of looking, poking, prodding and listening, she tells us it is just a bad cold and not anything like ebola or pneumonia. We get a script for a stronger albuterol solution and some cough medicine that has expectorant. Whatever. We could have done this on our own (reduce the saline in the albuterol, up the cough medicine dosage), but I guess it's always good to listen to advice you pay for.

Take the kids home, toss em into bed. Do the laundry, fire up the wood burning stove, blog. The Mrs watches General Hospital (bletch!) and attends a teleconference meeting with the Central Asia Haupertonian Revitalization Squad. Gotta keep them boys on their toes, they get distracted easily. Within a few hours, Jake wakes and I kick the Mrs out of the house so she can fill the prescriptions before rush hour starts. See how dull the 'mundane middle class' can be when detailed 'in painful scrutiny'? Shortly after the WonderWife leaves the house, Alexis wakes up and we all snuggle in the mile-wide water bed while we watch cartoons and they have a bit of milk. I'm sure they are a bit dehydrated. What, with all the gallons of snot and all flying from their noses like squadrons of stealth fighters with virus tipped hellfire missiles.

By the time the Mrs comes home, we have completed the snuggle project and the twins have moved on to the 'Destroy the Kitchen' mission interspersed with watching some television. Grilled cheese sandwiches are formed and partially eaten. The kids are not entirely interested in eating their chewable vitamins, but have no aversion to eating a few jelly beans. I thought that if I put them in my chest pocket, I could magically produce them on demand. They figured out this trick immediately and thrust their hands into my shirt to gain maximum satisfaction. Well, no more of that.

What we thought would be the final task of the evening was the attempt to get out the nebulizer and treat the kids. Well, Alexis made it well known that she was not to be a willing party to this event. The howled and thrashed and proclaimed 'Get Off MEEEEE!' the whole 5 minutes. It seemed like an hour. This is how I am getting a reputation as being a 'bad guy' in our family. The things we do for love. Jake on the other hand, was exceedingly cooperative and thought it would be a treat to get the 'fog' blown in his face. He used to hate this, but I think when he saw me blowing puffs of mist when it was cold outside he became enchanted. He dutifully waited while trying to console his distraught sister. The minute she got up, he plopped down in my lap and proclaimed 'My turn!'. He is buttering me up for something, I'm sure of it.

Early this morning, Jake woke up with all the vim and vigor of a Bull in the spring. He turned on his night-light aquarium and music box at 0330. It woke me nearly immediately. He complained a few times so I poked the Mrs so she could go fetch him and we could go back to sleep. It did not work out that way, he was wide awake and ready to go. He pretty much flailed his way out of the bed and spent the next hour traipsing through the house till the Mrs got tired of the game and put him back to bed. He let out a few cries of contempt and then went back to sleep. My Withering Wife never made it back to the master suite. She collapsed on the sofa/futon in the child detainment room and did not wake till I went in to get her at 0600. That is about the time that her alarm clock went off. I can shut the damn thing off without turning on the light ... sneaky engineering at work here. We had to get up on time this morning so we could go through the Nebulizer of Dooom treatment (it is supposed to be 4 times a day) and evaluate the kids to see if we think they can hack it at day care. They were looking pretty good compared to the Mrs and I so we decided to go out on a limb and let them go to day care. Hope we don't get a call on this foggy January day to go pick them up again. I'm going to be seriously short on vacation days if this keeps up.

# posted by mdmhvonpa @ 5:28 AM