In the last episode, our local psychopath (i.e. ME) was complaining about how cruel and hard life was because everything seemed to be turning up roses. HA! Let’s all laugh at her.

That very evening Muppet came home from school grumpy. This isn’t too unusual considering the hours he puts in. I didn’t think much of it, really. However, as I was getting him ready for bed I noticed he was rather warmish. Rather warmish is the new way of saying I had to run cold water on my hand for half an hour after touching him. Great, another fever. Then I stripped his shirt off of him.

And a pox fell over the land.

Folks, the kid brought home some herpes! Yes, his shoulders were covered in blisters, nice red juicy ones. Chicken Pox. Lovely.

Lovely? Well, yes. See, chicken pox are fun, right. And since he’s the eldest, he is the first to go through this childhood right of passage. Pooplette and MP3 have been spared…so far. But the great sage doctor was kind enough to point out that there is a two week incubation period, so we’re not necessarily done. Good news: MP3 is still in that age group where the pox are rather rare. Hope is given. Bad news: Mama is still in that age group where chicken pox is nasty. Yep, I am not immune. Hope?

If anyone out there can do that voodoo anti-chickenpox dance thing I’d be ever so grateful.

So, we’ve been doing the fun fever battle. And we’ve been doing the don’t scratch dance. And it seemed things were going fine. Monkey is covered from head to tall with incriminating pox marks, certain delicate bits having not been spared. It seems my brilliant plan of having all three kids pose for a Christmas Card Picture to send the friends and family will probably be scrapped—a face like his doesn’t seem very merry.

And while The Pox are fun, and they’ve added enough seasoning to make life just miserable enough, we’re not quite done. Both girls are having a terrible time getting rid of the colds that started a couple of weeks back. MP3 is on antibiotics, and Pooplette has been pooping something that I surely could sell as some type of biological weapon when she hasn’t been spewing from the other end.

And, of course, Mr. Manthing has had Places To Be and Important Shit To Do. Isn’t that typical. No, to be fare, I did kind of guilt him into staying at home on Sunday. But isn’t that something I shouldn’t have to do, especially considering he’d told me just two days before that if we couldn’t all go out to this Sunday Shindig as a family he’d rather stay home? I just don’t understand his logic sometimes. And he doesn’t understand why I get SO PISSED OFF at shit like that. Men!

In my next life, I swear, I’ll have nothing to do with them.

So everyone is sick. And that should have me stacking up enough complaints to get me through even the best of holiday seasons, right?

But we’re not done yet.

Last night, while washing Monkey with some super-duper antiseptic foaming wash stuff (to keep his pox from infecting and help keep them from itching as much—really works...or worked as the case may be), I noticed his eyelids looked kinda swollen. Mr. Thing noticed this as well, and we figured we’d just keep an eye on it. This morning, his eyes were really swollen, eyelids, under his eyes, the bridge between his eyes. He looked as though he’d gone 12 rounds with Foreman, only without the pretty multicolored bruises. So, tonight we’ve been back to the Dr., who suspects either an allergy to the foamy wash stuff, or a food allergy, or maybe a possible allergy to the anti-alergy medication that keeps him from itching too terribly much—although that’s like unheard of, ya know, or maybe it’s just part of the whole pox thing. Who knows. We’re certainly not about to go another round of allergy tests for this. Not tonight.

No, tonight is reserved for bloody noses, legs stuck in pajamas and all other minor catastrophes that the monkeys find to put me through.