I am so very sick.

For Thanksgiving we went to Drek's sister's house and met up with the majority of Drek's family like we did the year before. I have loved it both years. I'm all in favor of making it a permanent Thanksgiving tradition.

But it does have drawbacks. Thanksgiving is during cold and flu season. There are fourteen small children (and counting!). One of them, if not half of them, will be sick. Or getting sick, or recovering from being sick.  Gathering children from three different states ensures that new germs are being introduced to young, inexperienced immune systems.  Sugar is a must for Thanksgiving (cereal for breakfast, pies for dessert, candy everywhere) so my children's  immune systems shut down. Driving home all day in a car with sick kids, breathing the same contaminated air means that by the time we arrive home we are all sick.

After spending WEEKS with sick kids, sick husband, and being sick myself, canceling plans, missing LLL meetings, and generally being miserable, we finally all start to recover when we are hit with a new strain of something and I find myself even more sick than I was, with a throat so sore I can't swollow, wondering if, between a four year that won't take naps no matter how sick she is, and an infant that coughs so hard at night she throws up on me (three nights in a row), I will ever have three hours of uninterupped sleep ever again.

And yet, it's December. And I have small children. It should be a given that our family spends a month hovering near the brink of death. That's just how it works. I should be grateful that our family usually misses this sort of thing, and, in fact, it's been a few years since we were all this sick.

But I'm not grateful. I'm cursing these germs. I'm furious at the timing. My dear friend starts emergency chemo and radiation today. I haven't been able to see her since we left for our Thanksgiving vacation. I can't go anywhere near her, or have her come anywhere near the girls, because she might get our germs and since she has no immune system, she will die.

So here I am, uselessly lying in bed, waiting. Hoping I will get to see her before it's too late.