in sickness and in health

(I'm publishing this on 3/2, but changing the date to last week since that's when I actually wrote it.)

A few evenings ago I was saying my prayers and it occurred to me that even though my kids have been sick a lot, I haven't really been sick this winter, so I said a prayer of gratitude for that. The next morning I was throwing up. I recovered pretty quickly from that stomach virus and promptly moved on to getting a cold which is only getting worse. Yay.

Ann Marie may have another ear infection, but I'm not sure. I might be in denial. Or she might just be bored and want more attention. She's been crying a lot more than usual lately, and she's had a chronic runny nose all winter. She's probably had a low-grade fever several times too, but I haven't been able to check because our kid-friendly thermometer died and we only have a mercury thermometer. Every time I show up at the walk-in clinic at the doctor's office I'm afraid they'll roll their eyes and say I'm starting to be a hypochondriac, except I know that's silly because every time we've gone it's been for a legitimate reason.

Kevin is having surgery to get tubes in his ears next week. As time goes on I'm becoming more convinced that he's been dealing with mild hearing loss for most of the school year. He's always asking me to turn up the volume in the car, but this morning I turned on the car before buckling him in, and when I got in the back I realized the fade on the speakers was set so that it's way, way too loud in the back. He also turns the volume up on the computer a lot when he's watching movies. His OT thinks this surgery will help him a lot with his auditory processing issues, which are the source of a lot of our behavior problems lately.

Heidi puts on a mournful look and tells me she's "just feeling a little sick" multiple times a day. It's tricky when they're three because it's hard to tell if they're actually sick or just in the habit of saying it.

I was trying to crunch some numbers today:

3 kids

1 school year

4 ear infections

5 rounds of antibiotics

~15 doctor visits with two more scheduled (if you count the ear tube surgery) and Ann Marie due for a well-child (for a total of ~18)

10 pharmacy trips

We are trying to enforce hand-washing more strictly, but I don't have much control over the germs Kevin gets at school.