At George’s request, I took the boys to a cavern today so we could go underground. (The man was a mole in a former life, I have no doubt.) So we met up with my friend Emily and her three adorable children at Inner Space Cavern north of Austin.
The boys were enthralled (every day I realize how much they take after George and how little they take after me) and had a great time. I had a nice time, but they really loved it. I told them Daddy will take them on a more adventurous cave tour when they’re older. A boys trip. Sounds great to me!
(It’s a much better post title if you sing it to the tune of Proud Mary.)
Today, on the advice of a pal, we took the kids tubing in New Braunfels, on the Comal River. (We being Deborah, her husband Tom, and our coworker Elizabeth; kids being my three and Deborah and Tom’s two.) I bought a Texas-themed Igloo cooler just for the occasion. (And I mean, what other states do this? Where else can you buy coolers with the state flag, and in what other states do all hotels have state-shaped waffle irons? Are there any other states like Texas?)
We started from a place called Landa Falls, basically a river outfitter where we got inner tubes for us and the cooler, life jackets for the kids, and a locker to keep all of our stuff.
It didn’t start off promisingly. We went down to the river to get in, and it was basically impossible to stay together. The current wasn’t super strong, but the river was deep, and it was just fast enough to make it hard to go where you wanted.
Linus in particular was not happy if we weren’t all together (they always had an adult with them, I’m not a monster) but they all wanted to be together. Eventually with much swimming and grabbing on to the side and leg cramps (all on my part) the boys and Elizabeth and I all managed to get in a group, each holding on to another tube’s handle in a group so no one could float away.
Boy, I wish we’d brought ropes.
The problem is, the other group had the cooler! And we were thirsty! And my camera was in the other cooler! After about an hour or so, we got to a point where we could get out. (I make that sound so easy, but it was not. There was swimming and pulling tubes and slippery rocks and more leg cramps.)
Everyone else except for Deborah’s kids were ready to call it a day. I was not. (Turns out tubing isn’t cheap.) So in the end, Oliver and Linus went with Tom to get pizza, and the rest of us decided to keep on tubing.
Now, I love pizza, but I’m really glad we kept floating. It got more fun – there were chutes! Like tiny waterslides! The current got a bit faster! And if I’m completely honest, it was a lot easier to keep track of one kid instead of three. (Especially when the other two weren’t really into it.) The river was beautiful, clean and blue, and with not a lot of creatures in it. (I’m not really into natural bodies of water, for the most part.)
Eventually, we got to the end, hauled ourselves out of the river, and made it back to meet the other three.
Would I do it again? Sure. With a few grown up friends and a bunch of rope to tie us together. I really would have loved to swim more in the river, but the only time I did was to haul a kid out or swim against the current. At one point, I was trying desperately to get Miles out before we got sucked down a chute, and I was against a strong current and he was panicking (he was perfectly safe, he just didn’t want to go down the chute) and so I was swimming with all my might to the side towing him and my tube and there was nowhere to hold on to and….anyway. Yeah. Next time, no kids and a rope to tie myself to my tube so I can swim sometimes and not worry about my tube.
I swear I took this yesterday, just didn’t have a chance to post it. (Deborah and I were too busy watching disaster movies.)
Yeah, we’re in Austin now, housesitting with Deborah’s family for another coworker. So far we haven’t done a whole lot, just relaxing, going swimming, working, that kind of thing. Yesterday we attempted an urban adventure quest downtown, but it kind of went to pot when it started to sprinkle, then everyone was hungry, and Miles’s ear started hurting. So after lunch at a pizza place and of course a Voodoo doughnut, I took Miles to urgent care where he was diagnosed with a double ear infection. Poor bunny.
You can tell the school year is almost over. Miles is wearing two different shoes, Oliver has black pants instead of navy, and you can almost see Linus’s toes through his shoes. But by god, we are almost to the end of third grade!
Aw, a year ago was the 100th monthly pic, which I planned for so long, but didn’t exactly turn out as amazing as I’d hoped. Mostly because of socks. Oh well. 200 will be better.
This has been a terrible year for sickness. I don’t know why. I thought the boys got all the sicknesses out of their systems when they were younger. We had a great run of it for a few years, but this year has been constant. There was the coughing and asthma from the fall that lasted three weeks, then the barfing in the winter, and now this.
“This” is Whooping Cough. Wait, what year is it? 1938? No, it’s 2017, my kids are fully vaccinated, and they were diagnosed the other day with pertussis, more commonly known as Whooping Cough.
Well, I say “they.” Not really. But let me go back to the beginning…
February 28, Mardi Gras day: I took Oliver to a parade, but George called me because Miles had a fever. We headed home and I took Miles to Urgent Care, where he tested negative for strep (which was my guess) but was given a z-pack (azithromycin) anyway. The doctor thought it was some kind of throat infection.
Infecting the whole Smoothie King Arena at the twenty one pilots concert!
March 5: Oliver has been coughing a little bit, but it’s not terrible, and I go to Australia/New Zealand.
March 15: I arrive home, and Oliver is still coughing.
March 16: I get a call from the school nurse. Need to pick up someone (I can’t keep track) because of coughing.
March 17: I get a call from the school nurse. Need to pick up someone (I can’t keep track) because of coughing.
Spreading disease at the Aquarium!
March 20: I get a call from the school nurse. Need to pick up someone (I can’t keep track) because of coughing.
Ha ha ha ha ha yeah like that was gonna help.
March 21: I get a call from the school nurse. Need to pick up someone (I can’t keep track) because of coughing. I take Oliver to the pediatrician because his cough is not getting better. But he’s showing no other symptoms. He had a very mild (like 99 degrees) fever, though. The doctor suggests maybe it’s a post-nasal drip from a sinus infection, so she prescribes a z-pack.
March 22: I have to work at a conference in town, so George stays home with all three kids.
March 23: The boys go back to school, and that afternoon I triumphantly post on FB that I didn’t have to pick up anyone from school! My triumph is short-lived, though.
March 24: I get a call from the school nurse. Need to pick up all three because of coughing.
March 27: Me and the school nurse are buddies by now. But the kind of buddies you dread hearing from. I really do like her. But I hate it when she calls. When I go pick up Oliver, she says, “this is going to sound crazy, but it might be Whooping Cough.” I poo-poo the idea. He’s vaccinated, after all!
March 28: I volunteer as a chaperone for a field trip in Miles’s class. This way I know I can give cough syrup midday to all three, so maybe we can make it through an entire day again! I dose up Miles and Oliver, but when I get to Linus’s classroom, he’s already been sent to the nurse’s office. Sigh. I take all three home.
March 29: I keep all three home from school. WHAT’S THE POINT? Meanwhile, I desperately make an appointment with the pediatrician, who agrees it can’t hurt to test them for pertussis. That afternoon, we head to Children’s Hospital to get the test. It involves shoving a thin tube up the boys’ noses after squirting saline up there. There is a surprising amount of laughter while they have it done, even though it’s definitely not pleasant.
At the doctor’s office. Notable because they’re reading!Waiting to get a tube shoved up their noses.
That evening, I get a call from the doctor. “Are you sitting down?” she asks. “Linus tested positive for Whooping Cough. The other two were negative for that, but positive for rhinovirus.” (Which is just a cold.) Dr. Google had already told me that the treatment for pertussis is a course of antibiotics. As it happens, a z-pack. We realize that must be why Oliver tested negative – he had a z-pack the week before!
But what about Miles? We were going to have this in our house forever. Do you know pertussis is called the “100 day cough”? Yeah, I believe it.
But then it hit me – Miles did get antibiotics, for the mysterious illness he had on Mardi Gras day! It’s only a theory, of course, but it makes sense…Miles was Patient Zero! We got, dare I say, lucky, that we treated him unknowingly. And correctly. Never have I been so glad that the boys have a penicillin allergy! Z-packs FTW! And Miles finished his antibiotics before he went back to school after Mardi Gras break, so at that point he was no longer contagious.
So here it is, March 31. Linus is on antibiotics. I am on antibiotics (preventative.) I sent Oliver to school this morning because he seemed to be feeling okay. (And is no longer contagious as he finished his z-pack already.) But right on schedule…
I get a call from the school nurse. Need to pick up someone (I can’t keep track) Oliver because of coughing.
When I go to pick him up, the nurse’s office is filled with third graders. Earlier today, I got a call from the state Department of Health about the whole situation. I’m really glad they’re tracking it and everything. But it really hit home when I got to school to pick up Oliver. Every parent of a coughing third grader was getting a phone call with a recommendation to start antibiotics. If they weren’t vaccinated, they have to stay out of school for 21 days.
A little while ago, a letter went out to the whole school saying there’s an outbreak of Whooping Cough in the third grade. Ugh. We’re not named in the letter but it’s obviously not a secret since I’m blogging about it.
I feel irrationally terrible. I know it’s not our fault. We had no idea. We don’t know where we got it from. We vaccinate our kids. We get vaccines ourselves. Who would have thought we’d come down with some preventable disease? But we have friends with small children. The boys were at school all month with this. They’ve been in public. They’ve played with friends. We went to a one year old’s birthday party!
We may have weeks of coughing ahead of us. It’s “only” been four weeks. We could have another month of this.
Linus is staying brown (well, -ish. As close as I could get, anyway. There’s still a greenish blue tinge that isn’t not kind of neat.) But Oliver wanted his purple back.
And then Miles wanted me to figure out this specific hairdo. (Did I mention I also cut his hair? Go me!)
Who said you need little girls to have fun with your kids’ hair? (I mean, hopefully no one actually said that.)
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