Healthy until you need us to be.

I’ve had the great fortune of good health this year, which is amazing considering the lack of attention I pay to my well-being. The kids are rarely sick…maybe a sniffle or a cough every now and again, but little else. For this I thank God each and every night! However, it never fails. When we need to be healthy and well, one of us almost always comes down with something.

Want us to be in your wedding? Great! Two days before your walk down the aisle, we’ll get chicken pox. I agreed to host your baby shower? Super! Our house will be hit with a stomach virus the morning of.

We are healthy as horses until we need to be.

This week was one of those weeks we’d been looking forward to for nine months. Kelly, “Aunt Kelly” to Alex and Meredith, had her baby last Sunday. The Burgin family was so excited to welcome their first girl, Maya Jane, and we couldn’t wait to meet her. To make the visit even sweeter, our families hadn’t seen each other in ten months. Kelly and I talk on the phone at least three times a day. So it feels like we see each other regularly, but we don’t. It was going to be a fun trip! We were leaving Friday.

(Photo lifted straight from www.kellyburgin.blogspot.com With no permission whatsoever.)

Alex stayed home from school on Monday with a barking cough. I ominously warned Kelly there was a slight chance we couldn’t visit. I would not take a sick child into the home of a newborn, no matter how badly I want to smell her baby-powder-scented head. Kelly laughed and reminded me it was their third.

Tuesday, I started coughing. Wednesday, I missed Meredith’s preschool conference and blamed it on my “illness.” Thursday evening, I had a full blown cold. Fever, chills, achiness…wait, maybe I did need a flu shot. Friday, I knew there was no way we were going to see Baby Maya. Maybe I’d be better and we could go on Saturday???

I was going to call Kelly at 9:00 a.m. her time and break the news. Instead, my phone rang an hour earlier. It was Kelly’s oldest, Mason. The conversation went something like this:

Me: Oh, Hi Mason! How are you?!
Mason: Um, when are Alex and Meredith going to be here?
Me: Oh, Sweetie. I’m sick and I don’t think we’re going to be able to come today.
Mason: Um, (voice cracking) you better talk to my mom.

Kelly added to my guilt by telling me he was standing in their kitchen with big tears. Why didn’t I get a flu shot?!

I felt better Saturday, but didn’t want to expose the Burgin family. With a little finagling of the schedules, we plan to visit next Friday, but I’m afraid to say it out loud. We might get rheumatic fever.