Everyone in my house is a red hot mess.

Ethan went to his first trial day of preschool a couple of Fridays ago. In four short hours, he learned all about sharing... germs. I can't prove it, but I'm pretty sure that an adorable little girl with a not-so-adorable faucet nose shared her cold with my otherwise healthy little man. By Super Bowl Sunday my poor kid was just not himself. By Monday he was a mess. He was supposed to start preschool on Tuesday, but we decided to keep him home for the week. On Tuesday evening, Ethan was sleeping about 15 minutes out of every hour, spending the rest of his night in a heap of tears. When his fever hit 104.9°, I called the advice nurse at Kaiser. She told me to bring him in to the ER when his temp reached 105°.

Isn't 104.9° practically the same thing as 105°? Sheesh.

We gave him ibuprofen, and his fever broke. I thanked my lucky stars that we had avoided a middle of the night hospital run.

An hour later, at about 3am, Ryan's back started bothering him. Really bothering him. Writhing around in agonizing pain bothering him. I made another call to the Kaiser advice nurse, and we were told to make an appointment in the morning.

By 4am, Ryan was certain that he needed to go to the ER. I gathered my poor sick boys, loaded them into the car, and drove to the hospital. Since Ethan was in such bad shape, we just dropped Ryan off at the hospital entrance and came back home. After putting Ethan back to bed, I tried to get a bit of sleep myself. I kept waking up, checking my phone for a text or call from Ryan. When a message finally popped up, it wasn't what I expected.

Kidney stones. My husband's back pain was actually caused by a stone moving from his kidney to his bladder. Poor guy.

You can probably get a pretty good picture of what the rest of the week looked like. We're actually all still recovering from it. Even though I wasn't the sick one, I feel like I survived a major illness. I guess that's what sleep deprivation will do to you. Ryan of course ended up with Ethan's cold once he recovered from his kidney stones. Heaven forbid he catches a break after going through what I'm told is the male pain equivalent to child birth. And Ethan? He's over his cold, but is contending with the transition to preschool this week, which has thrown him (and me) for quite a loop.

But that's a post for another day. I'm still a red hot mess and just don't have it in me.