Wake me when it is 2010, part deux

So, apparently when we were down in NJ visiting my family (along with that day trip into NYC using many forms of public transportation and bumping through crowds of tens upon thousands of people), we all picked up a germ or three. First it was me sneezing and sneezing and aching and aching and having *no* energy pretty much from Sunday on until this morning. Kiddo started earlier this week with some impressive but not terribly frequent nasal emissions. Yesterday, Hubby started with the sneezing and the runny nose and overnight, added a headache to the mix, while Kiddo started running a low grade fever and added a cough to the repertoire. Not to be outdone, my germs opted to zero in on the throat region, setting my entire throat from tonsils back on fire and making swallowing uncomfortable at best, fairly agonizing at worst. This morning, Kiddo further upped the ante by having her cough evolve from a dry, occasional thing into a horribly tubercular, wet, breath-stealing, nonstop hacking fiesta. Given our combined state of utter patheticalness (yes I just made that word up), we felt it wisest to cancel our plans for yesterday and lay low. Given our worsening state of utter pathetictude (yep, another one) this morning, I canceled our plans for today and just called the pediatrician's office.

Now, our pediatrician's office opens at 8:30am. I began dialing my way through the automated menu system at 8:29 so that I could be one of the first calls answered by a real, live person. (This works better some days than others - I have been stuck in the auto-hold chain for over 10 minutes in the past.) This morning, I was talking to a real, live person by 8:31. That was the good news. The not-quite-so-good news is that the first appointment Kiddo's doc had available isn't until 11:45 this morning. Guess we aren't the only germy folks in town (even if our germs are of a more exotic, imported, New Jerseyan/New York Cityean variety).

Kiddo is now tucked into my bed, where she is hacking and coughing germs all over my pillows and linens. (Note to self: change bedding before climbing back into bed tonight.) She's running a fever so she is pretty low energy, which she appears to be trying to conserve for the aforementioned coughing bouts. Hubby sniffled and sneezed his way off to work today, returning who knows how late tonight as it is his first day back in the office since before Christmas. (He worked from home over the holidays, including while we were in NJ, but that doesn't help with all the mail etc that accumulates when one isn't physically in the office...) I hopped in the shower as soon as I pulled the thermometer out of Kiddo's mouth in anticipation of being asked "Can you bring her in right now?" which actually only ever happens if I *haven't* anticipated that. Hmmm, maybe I should've just stayed in my jammies in order to ensure a first-thing-come-right-away opening. My bad.

To sum up, we are a generally pathetic bunch here in my family today. I just hope that Kiddo doesn't have anything serious (various relatives with whom we broke bread and shared air over the holidays are now on various antibiotics for their various ills, any combo of which we may be brewing up here right now) and that whatever she has is sufficiently in hand before school starts on Monday. Because (guilty, bad Mommy confession coming up here) I was rather looking forward to Monday, with normal life resuming and Kiddo going back to school and such. Not that I don't love playing Sorry, Trouble or Connect 4 for hours, really. Nor do I mind letting Kiddo pretend she is a dog and feeding her as she sits under the table, barking and pawing at my leg. I enjoy having everyone home and together, really. I truly do. I just was looking forward, just the tiniest little bit, to getting back to Life As Usual. In the meantime, I just hope that, along with Kiddo - and Hubby! - getting better quickly, that I don't get worse myself, because we all know, mommies can't get sick....

In other virus-related-esque news, after reading blog post after blog post about folks having horrendous computer crashes and losing all their files, I am very relieved that Hubby just signed us up for an online back-up service, which will automatically back up everything for us, including my (literally tens of thousands of) pictures and videos and everything - even my iTunes collection. Whew. It's doing the initial back up now, which is slowing both of our computers down, but once the initial back up is done, it should be an invisible and painless process.

Time to brew myself a cup of tea and make something for Kiddo for breakfast. Hoping everyone else is less germy and blah than our patheticocity here! (Woo, the made up word trifecta!)

RANDOM AND WEIRD UPDATE: Okay, just as I was spellchecking (go made up words!) and getting ready to hit publish on this, the phone rang. Twas the doctors' office calling, so as I answered, I was totally thinking "Woo-hoo, they had a cancellation and can see us earlier!" as this has happened in the past. Nope. Totally, completely NOPE. Instead of getting to go in earlier, the receptionist said "I need to cancel Kiddo's appointment. We've been told we need to close the office and leave the building immediately." Whaaaa?!?!?! I asked her why that was and she didn't know. All she knew was that they were closing immediately for an unknown period of time. She said my options were either to wait and see if they are able to open tomorrow morning or take Kiddo to an Urgent Care center instead. So, so weird. I wonder what the heck is going on that they have to close the building.....? The doctors' office is in a complex of medical buildings, so it seems like it could be any number of things. Hubby guessed it was some sort of landlord-tenant issue to which I said "Huh?" because that seemed like a much more farfetched guess than my immediate thoughts about some sort of plague outbreak (Ebola, anyone? I mean, who's to say that someone didn't visit some much more exotic location than NJ over the holidays, bringing back much more exotic germs than ours?) or more likely, a water main break or heating issue or something that requires power to be shut off to the building...

At any rate, I now have to wait until 11 and call the UC clinic to see if I can get Kiddo in there instead. Whee.