Is that a cocoon in the back of your throat?

D is sick. He has strep throat. And it is freaking nasty.

It started at 4am Thursday morning -- what should have been his first day back to school after 2 snow days. Instead he woke up shivering and feverish, complaining of body aches which were evidently worse than the sore throat. I dragged him to the doctor and when she asked him to rate his pain on a scale of 1 to 10, he said 10 .

This surprised me because I think of D as sort of stoic and non-complaining (whereas I become Whine Central Station as soon as I feel the least bit yucky). My mom says it could not have been a 10 because he has never had a baby or a root canal and therefore does not know what 10 is.

Still, he was completely miserable. Once we left the doctor, I dropped him off at home with motrin and juice and went to the store to pick up popsicles and gatorade and his prescription. He is feeling much better today and hasn't had a fever since yesterday morning, so this is good.

Unfortunately, I'm feeling a little gross. I don't think I have strep (there are no nasty white spots in the back of my throat, although when I looked at David's throat last night it was so disgusting I started dry-heaving and that kind of made my throat hurt). That's when he said "It looks like a cocoon back there," which is so disgusting and so true. Like a silkworm or something. Gag gag gag.

Anyway, I opted out of tutoring little kids today, deciding that I could either be carrying the strep virus or worn down enough to contract whatever sort of cold/flu/grossness they have (if I had a quarter for everytime I said "Do you need a tissue?" last week, I probably could have doubled my hourly pay). Instead, I am doing my second round of laundry (sheets, towels, D's fuzzy Cardinals blanket, basically everything he has touched in the last two days) and trying to work up the energy to run a few errands. I still have some cleaning to do, too -- I feel like every surface in our house is covered with his germs and I wish it weren't freezing outside so I could throw open door and windows and air the place out. As we still have 5 inches of snow on the ground, this seems a bit impractical.

So... good times at my house. Stay healthy and stay tuned. Maybe next week will bring more excitement...