Friday, November 28, 2008

Orange Rolls and Eye Drops

For Thanksgiving this year, we are at my sister's house. She lives in upstate New York. For the record, it is colder here than it is in Kentucky. They also get snow and it sticks to the ground and apparently I haven't even really seen anything because it gets much worse in January which is why I have never made the trek to Manlius in January. See, even us Math people have a little common sense.

My sister and I enjoy each other and we usually even vacation together in the summers. But, somehow we manage to forget between visits that together we have six kids and that all of our kids are loud and that at least one of them will get sick anytime we get together. Usually the person who is several states away from home is the one who gets the sick kid (or sometimes husband). This trip has been especially fortunate because I have two sick kids. And, of course, neither of them showed a single symptom until we entered the great state of New York.

It started when we came in on Wednesday night and I noticed that Michael's eye was gucking up. By Friday morning, Spencer had the conjunctivitis look as well and since Spencer really only has one eye that works well and it happened to be the pink one, we decided that a trip to the local Urgent care center was appropriate. Three hours later, we came out with the diagnosis of two eye infections (one for each), a double ear infection for Michael and a sinus infection for Spencer. We also had 5 prescriptions to fill. At least I got to spend some quality time with my sister in the waiting room making fun of the parenting magazines.

But, the trip is only half over and with antibiotics and eye drops and ear drops we should have some functional kids by tomorrow. The plan is to take them all to Chuck-E-Cheese for lunch and spread their germs so that other parents will feel our misery and there will be balance in the world. And, also there are orange rolls coming out of the oven in a few minutes, and of course, orange rolls make everything better. So, overall, I believe the trip will be a success.

The other reason this is all good is a pretty selfish one. You see, our next vacation with them will be in Disneyworld in 2009 and it will be my sister's turn to have sick kids.

4 comments:

Kimbooly said...

I love making fun of parent magazines. Especially the "easy" darling crafts, an understatement of the year.

And I know the unwritten travel laws very, very well, usually being the one who travels to see family in a colder climate!

Luckily siblings & spouses now have more kids who have gotten sick plenty of times, so nobody freaks out anymore and won't allow their kids to play with mine or take christmas pics w/ mine, etc., ad nauseum.

I mean, I really get it if you're by neighbors and try to keep the germs contained. But family is family, ya know?

But this last trip Jeffrey got extremely sick, and I voluntarily stayed at the Wilsons w/ him while Rob, kids, & Rob's parents went to dinner w/ the most antiseptic of sister-in-laws.

She actually called me and asked that we please join them because she wanted to see us so much (awwwe), and had Jeffrey sit in an unused room and read, which he loved doing. That was a HUGE leap forward for her.

Brig said...

I've got a sore throat now. Maybe it's strep. :( I hope I can make it through the movie when we go see Twilight this afternoon...

momofa2e said...

Ah ha...that must be why I haven't made it to Louisiana to visit my sister. Between us we have 9 kids and I would be the out-of-state one, hence I would be sure to get sick kids. But, if we make it to Disneyworld then we'll both be out-of-state...would that jinx us both or cancel each other out!?!

Liz said...

Kara, you make me laugh!

Remember that your favorite friends live near Disneyworld...