I know, I KNOW! Move on already.

Oh, how I wish I could. Today Benjamin and I went to the pediatrician because his level of Hot last night was sort of Inferno-ish and might have unnerved Husband a bit. And, well, that’s what you do when 3 year olds are sick, right? You take them to the doctor’s office where EVERYONE is sick.

I hate that place. I always want to wear a gas mask and Hazmat suit and take a shower a la Silkwood after we’re done which is NEVER FAST ENOUGH.

Anyhoo.

Benjamin typically loves the doctor. Because they give him Thomas stickers there. Somehow the stickers make him instantly forget the poking or stabbing or prodding that went on the 7 minutes before that moment.

And today was FULL of poking – full of JAMMING, really. They jammed two very long Q-tip looking doodads squarely up his nose and one squarely down his throat. He was thrilled. Luckily the nurse was very skilled, if a bit socially awkward, and it was over quickly. He sneezed about 97 times afterwards and blew snot all up and down my arm and HOW I don’t have this pestilence after what he’s flung at me the past few days I WILL NEVER KNOW.

Turns out he has (drumroll, please…) H1N1. A mild case. We were given Tamiflu, but I’m using it as he was literally running, singing and dancing all day long and had all of one dose of Motrin. I’m thinkin’ Day Two of Piggy Pestilence is fine — and no additional goofy drugs needed.

I was told that the incubation period for this is 1-4 days and if I don’t come up with any symptoms by tomorrow there’s a good chance I (and Leah) won’t get it.

Ain’t that some shit? The girl who is currently afflicted with EVERYTHING somehow may skip Swine Flu.

We’ll see. Day ain’t over yet.

So, that’s the update. No more pestilence stories. Tomorrow we’ll talk about something WAY more interesting.

Yep, that’s right, folks – it’s time for that penis story I promised you. You’ll want to have a cocktail at hand for this one.

Hey! You knew this was coming, right?

Oh, COME ON, of COURSE this was coming.

This ain’t your first rodeo.

Benjamin woke up with fever this morning. 100.7 to be exact. All glassy-eyed and “snuffy” and coughy and puny. So, that’s TWO down now at Casa Pammer. Leah has had a semi-barky cough for a day or two, but nothing worse at this point.

The timing of this is, of course, most awesome. I have a HUGE deal (on Day 25 of this new job) to work on — and I’m not entirely sure how you do that with a glassy-eyed, “snuffy”, coughy and puny 3 yr old in your lap while almost your entire team is off at a conference this week.

But I’m about to find out.

In other news, Leah has made her Hanukah list. It looks like this:

iPhone

iPod

iTouch

Computer

Cupcake maker

Can someone hand me a cocktail?

The following is an unedited, unphotoshopped picture.

This is what my household has been dealing with for weeks. WEEKS.

Benjamin has had ear infection after ear infection after ear infection and, oh, yeah, he’s having trouble hearing. REALLY? NO SHIT?!

Because of this latest round of antibiotics, he developed a severe diaper rash that was moderated slightly by a prescription tushie cream, but that didn’t work for long because now his delicate little tushie has a raging yeast infection that I swear if you saw it would not only start crying but would want to take him to the hospital.

(If, um, you happened to see it 87 times a day. Every day. Just sayin’.)

Today I took him back to the ENT only to find out, huh, yeah, he might have been almost cleared up for 2 days, but his left ear is again infected.

Of course it is.

It is clear this cannot be fixed medically and therefore the Mighty Mighty Benjamite is gonna have some Mighty Mighty Ear Tube surgery this Friday.

To say the past 4 weeks have been difficult is the understatement of the century. Schedules have been blown to hell, jobs have been put at risk, tears have been shed, germs have been passed around (and around again), I have a standing Saturday appointment at the pediatrician’s office now and Husband and I are g-ddamned exhausted.

We didn’t want it to come to this, but after seeing the effects these things are having on his hearing and speech development, there is no other option. So hopefully on the back end of this we’ll have a little boy who is well, can clearly hear Mommy and Daddy say, “I love you,” can get our life out from under medications and doctor’s offices and actually give him a chance to say “milk” correctly.

But until then, I’ll be slathering his ass with ointments, pouring amoxicillin down his throat and a corresponding nice pinot down mine.

Today I had the lovely task of schlepping BOTH kids to the doctor. The Swimmy had to go see her ENT guy because at the end of the month she will be going back under the knife for the third time in her young life to get yet another ear tube – and have her adnoids taken out.

No biggee.

Except that we were there for THREE G-DAMNNED HOURS.

If this guy wasn’t a friend, I’d have gone completely batshit. Okay, perhaps I was a bit, uh, tight with my language and responses when he finally showed up. And perhaps I kept thinking in my head, “Hey Mr. Bigshot Doctor – I’ve seen you half-naked in a bathing suit and smashed out of your head whining about girl. Not. Impressed.”

So, yeah, there’s that.

And THEN I got to rush home and take The Mighty Mighty Benjamite back to the pediatrician because he has his monthly cold and it’s SnotFest 2007 around here again. Blah, blah, blah … strep test, okay, here’s some meds.

Ooohhhh – codeine! A nice change. Okay! We’ll try this, Dr. YouAreSoAwesome!

So.

MOST people take codeine and have a lovely, “Wow I’m woozy but my cough is so much better.”

MOST people get woozy.

MOST people feel kinda high.

MOST people go to sleep.

Once again, Benjamite ain’t most people. Here is a peek at 30 seconds of what he did for 23 minutes straight. And then discovered Barney, the big purple nightmare. It just gets better and better.

Codeine on Vimeo

We interrupt this holiday / vacation week so that we may bring you a FUCKING MISERABLE LITTLE FIVE MONTH OLD AFFLICTED WITH PESTILENCE OF THE PHLEGM-BASED VIRUS TYPE AND A TOOTH THAT HAS DECIDED TO SHOW UP NOW.

Yeah, that’s right. I said it. I said it in ALL CAPS.

The Mighty Mighty Benjamite is mighty, mighty pitiful right now. He just moans and whines (when he’s not trying to eat or spitting up what he just ate) – and moans and whines. And moooooaaaaaannnnssssss.

Oy.

I feel bad for him. The Happiest Baby in All the Land is far from happy. We’ve taken him to the doctor and they’ve basically said there’s not much they can do for him except let it take its course. Come back if he gets “real” fever – you know 102 degrees.

You know it sucks when the doctor says to you, “Good luck”.

I’m not real good at “Good luck”, so last night I hit the Innernetosphere in search of, um, answers. Well, it appears Hylands Teething Tablets may be one answer – and when this sad little dude wakes up, I’m shoving one in his mouth. Followed closely by some more Tylenol. Maybe then we’ll see his little smile again.

We broke a cardinal rule last night. We let him sleep in our bed. It was the first time we’ve done that with him – and it was only because he had some fever and we wanted to keep an eye on it. So, guess what? He slept fine.

Me? Notsomuch.

On a completely selfish note, I really hope the Pestilence is banished before Saturday night. You see, Husband and I are supposed to go to a big family celebration at a lovely hotel that night. We get to dress up all spiffy-like and go out like grown ups. Dinner, dancing, the whole works.

But that’s not the best part!

The BEST part was that we were gonna get to spend the night at the hotel all vacation-escape-like because a very kind and sympathetic babysitter was going to spend the night with the kids at our house.

We were going to have a whole night to ourselves. A. Whole. Night. Sigh.

Think good thoughts for us. I’m off to medicate a kid.