Friday the 13th

I've never actually believed in bad luck on Friday the 13th. My birthday's on the 13th, and Friday birthdays are always the best. Not that this Friday the 13th was my birthday.... Well, you get the idea, anyway.

This year, I think I can be a believer in 13th bad luck.

First, I took Sariah to the pediatrician bright and early in the morning, because she'd been running a 102-degree fever 2 nights in a row, with no other symptoms. I had this big freak-out session on Thursday, worrying that her tick bite a week and a half ago had caused her to get Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, which starts with the sudden onset of fever.

She doesn't have RMSF.

Silly me.

No, she has the flu, like the influenza flu. The kind they swab your nose for (that was fun, especially after they'd swabbed her throat for strep). The kind you get an annual shot for (which she did indeed get this year, incidentally, and fat lot of good that did!). She'll be contagious for 5-10 days. Somebody else in the family will probably get it, too. At least one somebody else. Which leads to....

Second, we were supposed to go to Kansas this weekend to see my parents' new house. Ok, well, we weren't really going to see my parents. Apparently, we were going so that we could ride my cousins' horses. At least, that's what my girls informed me when we had to tell them that we couldn't go infect Grammy and Papa with the flu. So, no trip to Kansas.

And third, we lost the dog we were dogsitting. Rex opened the gate, and Scooby ran out, and "it was nobody's fault, Mom, really!" (except that the perpetrator was standing there with the gate wide open). The good news was that we found him on his very own doorstop a few hours later (although some of the children were still weeping and wailing). The bad news was Scooby's family got stranded with car trouble on their trip, and couldn't get home to take Scooby back, and so we spent the evening worrying about losing their mutt again. How could we have possibly lost their dog after 3 days? The first day, yeah. I guess we got complacent. Or our 6-year-old wanted to see how fast Scooby could run. Whatever.

So, by the end of Friday the 13th, our kids were really admiring us. We cancelled their spring break vacation and we lost Scooby and refused to keep looking for him all over Norman. Hence, the Kid's Choice Parents-of-the-Year Award that we earned ourselves yesterday.

Yeah, I'm a believer.