I’m not quite sure why Chad continues to live in this house.

The last two weeks have been nothing more than one big Germ Fest and Incubation Experiment at our house. And quite honestly, I’m tired of it. And tired in general.

It started with sniffles (Remember how cute it was when L. was “‘niffin his ‘niffles”? If only that would have been the end of it.), which progressed to croup in L. and a cold in C. The croup was dealt with, but both boys were left with hacking, wracking coughs. And yes , they’re both still coughing, two weeks later.

Not wanting to be left out, I decided to get sick last week. I’m now 8 days into a cold that does not even respond to my faithful sidekick, Green Nyquil. I keep taking the Nyquil every night, however, because even if it can’t do a thing to my symptoms, it can at least make me delirious enough to not notice as much for six hours or so.

In the most recent turn of events, C. appears to have caught a stomach bug, complete with high fever and puking, on top of his continuing coughing and sneezing. I will not recount for you the mess I was cleaning up at 1:00 a.m., because you might be eating your lunch right now, and that wouldn’t be very nice of me. Suffice it to say…yuck.

The thing is, I don’t handle my kids’ illnesses very well. Oh, I’m fine if one catches a cold, or even if there’s a quickly-diagnosed episode of strep throat. But when the sickness drags on and on, when it produces high fevers, when it leaves my kids looking at me with big, sad, helpless eyes… I tend to fall apart a little.

I’m sure part of it is that I’m exhausted. Between my own inability to breathe through my nose, and listening for a needy child, my nights are not exactly restful.

But another part of it is that I should have become a pediatrician before I became a parent. As it is — with my complete lack of pediatrician credentials — when we get to this point, I spend my days wondering if we should head to the doctor’s or tough it out at home because it’s probably just a virus anyway. And to pass the time and distract myself, I decide to write a blog post and complain to the world at large.

The good news is, Chad has been healthy this whole time. Which has been good, because he’s had to make tissue runs and pick up pizza and keep us all from going over the emotional edge.

And I’m down to one more dose of Nyquil, so if tomorrow doesn’t bring some improvement, he might be making a Nyquil run, too.

For now, I’m going to check on the kids and then go sit by a sunny window, dreaming of the day we’re all healthy again and enjoying the sunshine. That day has to be coming soon, right?