Surrounded by Pestilence

All the boys are home. Aaaahhhh!

Last night I basked in the contentment of having these four lovable scamps within touching range. I was knitting, a couple of Boys were playing video games, one was reading quietly, another was checking Facebook. I was practically Mamsy surrounded by her Four Little Peppers.  Then Lovable Scamp #2 reached for a throat lozenge.

Cue the shower scene music from Psycho. Wreep! Wreep! Wreep! Wreep!

"Are you getting sick?"

"Yeah, I think I caught something on the plane."

Well, that is just peachy. Most of my memories from the past 20 years have been sanitized by childbirth amnesia, which is to say that I generally remember the touchy-feely warm glow of motherhood and have mostly forgotten the grittier details. One gritty detail I have not forgotten is that when one Boy gets sick, almost inevitably the germ finds us all, and then it is Not Pretty.

This is Christmas week. The next three days are packed with activities, followed by  the one week of the year that I have six lovely, uncommitted days and lots of leftovers in the fridge to keep me out of the kitchen. I will NOT get sick.

For the rest of the evening, I walked surreptitiously behind Two sanitizing surfaces he might have touched. I washed my hands at least a dozen times, and made sure someone else loaded the dishwasher. (Dirty cutlery, you know.)

This morning I congratulated myself when I woke up feeling JUST FINE.

Then I got to work found an e-mail from the co-worker in the next office. The subject line was "Sick."

NOOOOOOOOOO!