Good health fairy, where are you

So about the time I finished yesterday's post, Sean started feeling a little queasy. Then more than a little. That escalated into about 12 hours in the bathroom. Poor guy.

In the middle of all that I went to get Samantha from school. I did my third "are you feeling ok" check of the day (everyone else is falling apart, how could the four year old escape it?) and finally got the answer I'd been expecting for a week - "My throats a little sore. And my tummy hurts."

Two hours and one strep test later, it was official - strep 4, Steele family 0.

Sean actually thinks it's strep 5, Steele family 0, since there was a puke stain on the floor that no one will claim and he's now blaming it on the dog.

So today, Montgomery is off to school mostly healthy - please, let him stay mostly healthy enough to make it through the day.

Sean is huddled up in a ball on our bed, every muscle in his body exhausted by his battle with the bowl. Less than 48 hours from now he's supposed to be on a plane to the west coast for 10 days.

And Samantha is quaranteened until her 24 hours on meds passes, so no school and no dance class. But she feels GREAT. Wants to go to the beach, or the park, or her cousins, or the store, or anywhere that isn't in this house of sickness. Can you blame her?

My desk has work I can't even remember coming in, from my week long "I'm not sick; let me sleep" denial phase. All of it due out yesterday, except what was due out the day before.

Can I even tell you how much scrubbing I'm doing to try to find and kill these damn germs that seem to have taken over my house?

Oy. Happy Wednesday!

Creepin' back to good health

Got my voice back this morning, yay. I sound like a barfly from Tennessee, one who's been drinkin' and smokin' since she could walk, but at least I can carry on a conversation. My daughter wants to know when I'll get *my* voice back - she seems convinced I somehow got back someone else by mistake. The antibiotics have finally beaten down the strep. Unfortunately my headache is back.

Montgomery is still home from school - today, it's a stomach bug. Or something he ate. Either way the symtoms are the same - him in bed, me scrubbing carpet and every inch of his bathroom. Poor kid. (Although I was saying poor me when I was cleaning at 5am.) He's perked up a bit in the last hour; hope he's back on his feet by tomorrow.

Only three days til Sean leaves for Palm Springs. I hope we can all be healthy for a day - dare I ask for two?? - before he leaves.

Went to the chiro this am and was shocked to realize it's the last week of September. Samantha's preschool was setting out their pumpkin patch. Fall really snuck up on me this year.

Why does Barbie need a dog that poops?

I'm sitting in my semi-delirious state (5 days sick now, and about to break down and go to a dr) appreciating the fact that Avatar: The Last Airbender has my kids attention for 30 minutes. That's 30 minutes that I probably won't have to move. And it's 30 minutes we're not watching "Barbie and the Twelve Dancing Princesses", which we have seen more than two dozen times in the past 4 days.

And like raw brocolli across my raw throat comes the grating sound of ... Barbie. Noooo!!! Make it stop! But it's not Barbie and her eleven sisters (one set of twins and one set of triplets, if you're wondering at the whole 12 sisters part). It's "Barbie Doll & Tanner Dog".

Just as I'm relaxing, I realize that Mattel has gone too far. This dog doesn't just fetch like a real dog, and doesn't just love treats like a real dog. This dog poops. Craps. Relives himself of solid waste - "goes potty" as the website says.

Why, Mattel? Why would you think even for a second that Barbie needs a dog that poops? What mother of little children, and likely cats / dogs / other living animals, wants to chase plastic poop around her house when she's got plenty of the real thing to worry about?

Unable to believe my eyes, I had my son rewind the TiVo so we could watch it again. Yep, that dog is popping out the poop on tv. Although really, it looks more like rabbit poop than Golden Retriever poop - if real Goldens had pellet turds instead of those big stinkin' mounds my sister-in-laws dog lays down, the world would be a happier place. But even fake pellet shit doesn't have a place in my house.

Right now, I'm thinking two things. If anyone gives my daughter Tanner the Crapping Dog for any reason, that person will go on my .... er, crap list. (Sorry, couldn't resist.) And second, I bet this thing is going to have great resale value on eBay.

I've gotta rememeber to check Walmart, if I'm ever healthy enough to shop again.

Producing a Flawed Product

One of my favorite reads the past month has been Jane In Progress, the blog of Jane Espenson. Among other claims to fame she has a degree of connection to Joss and the Buffyverse. I mourn the lack of great writing on TV the last few seasons; in self-preservation I think I have searched out some of my favorite script writers, hoping to see where they are now and what I can look forward to from them. Sadly for me many of them have moved away from TV production to the big screen.

Did that first paragraph ramble on or what?

My point, yes I had one, was that Jane wrote over the weekend one of those Great Truths. Not just a writing truth, but one that you can take to many situations and know it as Truth. She wrote, "...our ability to detect flaws is far stronger than our ability to avoid producing flawed product." It's easier to go to a restaurant and say the meal was terrible than to stay home and cook it ourselves. Easier to criticize the politicians making choices than to do the work to find ones that make choices we support. And yes, easier to find flaws in the books and TV shows we see than to write better ones ourselves.

But don't let that stop you from trying. Better to produce a flawed product, than none at all.

Off to work on my own flaws. Happy Tuesday!

Labor Day plans

Dinner last night with the inlaws. Just Samantha and I - Sean has a 36 hole event in Orlando this weekend, and Montgomery was off on a birthday trip with some classmates. Dinner was a good time, but once the kids started going nuts at 8:30 I scooped up Samantha and headed out. When all my time is spent telling my kid not to do the things other kids aren't getting corrected for (spitting water on the floor; picking kiddie furniture up and swinging it around; dunking toys in their drink and then spreading the liquid joy around the leather furniture) it's time to go. Normally my little angel (!) wouldn't do any of the above; but when her beloved companion gets away with it, she assumes she can as well. Not.

Montgomery had a fantastic time at DisneyQuest. I'd never even heard of it - they call it an "Indoor Interactive Theme Park", which is evidently another way to say video game mecca. The parents who took him must have the patience of a turtle trying to cross I-95 on a holiday weekend; they not only drove 4 boys on the cusp of teenagehood 2 hours down the road, they spend 8 hours in the 'park' (really a 5 story warehouse type building) and then took them all out to dinner. Met them in town at midnight to pick up my son - the other boys all live across town - and was snuggled in my bed by 1. Montgomery says it's "pretty cool" - a glowing recommendation from him. Samantha was so worn out enough from her midnight trip that she slept in until the late, late hour of 8.

Tropical Storm Ernesto this week left me a few limbs down in the yard - one 25 footer - and some leaves in the pool, so there will be yard work and pool cleaning in my immediate future. And then a quiet day at home tomorrow - I'm very happy with the philosophy that living a mile from the ocean means never having to actually go to the beach. Much prefer a swim in the (clean) pool and some chicken and 'dogs on the grill.

Read a few really great books this week - started off with Christina Dodd's "Trouble in High Heels" on Tuesday. Great read, a bit of romance, a bit of suspense. Then on Wednesday, Nora Robert's "Morrigan's Cross". Also fantastic, and the first of a three book series. I love it when she has a trilogy that comes out quickly - three books in three months. I know I've got something great to look forward to. And then Thursday I read Christie Golden's "On Fire's Wings". Golden was a new-to-me author - can't wait to get more of her books. Fantasy with just a bit of romance; she also has written quite a few books in the Star Trek Voyager series, and has a trilogy coming out set in the World of Warcraft universe. I still occasionally play WoW, so I'm hoping those will be good.

Unfortunately the other two Luna books I picked up this week haven't grabbed me yet. I've read the first two chapters of both, and haven't been tempted to go further. This is why I don't usually buy Luna - these were trade paperbacks, so $15 each for books that aren't engaging me makes me cringe.

Lucky for me I've got something to look forward to - JR Ward's "Lover Awakened", the third book in her Black Dagger Brotherhood series, comes out Tuesday. I got turned on to her books (vampires and slayers in New York) in Atlanta and have been looking forward to this one's release. Can't wait!

Happy Sunday - hope your weekend is filled with family, friends, and a good book or two.