For a family that never gets sick, we sure had a doozy of a week.

It all started with Oliver waking up a little hoarse last Monday morning. I went to work, since he didn’t have a fever and seemed to be acting normally, but my mom came up to our house so he wouldn’t have to travel back and forth. Looking back, that was probably a mistake. I should have stayed home to watch him more closely. By the time I got home, he was refusing to drink anything and had not peed since the morning. Loud alarms went off inside my head: DEHYDRATION, alert alert alert! I started hounding him every 5-10 minutes to take a sip of something, but he took in less than ½ cup fluids between lunch time and bedtime. George and I debated well past 1:00am about taking him to the ER; in the end we decided to wait and see if he had a wet diaper in the morning.

He did. Barely.

But he still would not drink anything. He cried to me, “Oh, Mommy, make me feel better!” in his scratchy little whisper, but no tears came–and THAT scared the hell out of me. So we made our first ever “sick” visit (seriously, never more than a stuffy nose twice, in his 38 months of life!) to his doctor Tuesday morning. She found only a mild sore throat (viral, not strep). She suggested we keep giving him Tylenol every 4 hours to help the throat pain, pushing fluids on him the best we could, and call if he didn’t pee by 4:00. If he wouldn’t drink, he’d need to go to the childrens hospital for IV fluids.

So, we fought it out. Me versus the child to whom I passed on my horrible stubbornness. And it was a stressful day for all of us. It was killing me to hold him as he sat silently in front of the TV, my boy who rarely sat still and almost never stopped talking, and it broke my heart when he asked me to make it better and I couldn’t. Oliver cried, I cried, George and I begged and demanded and bribed him to take JUST ONE SIP, just one sip of ANYTHING, PLEASE. He would take a sip or two, then beg not to drink any more because it hurt. We had cups of different things all over the kitchen and family room: milk, chocolate milk, flavored water, chocolate milkshake, three different kinds of juice. I finally won him over with a cherry slushie from Dairy Queen: getting him to eat ¼ cup was a huge triumph. But by 4:00 he still had not peed. I admitted defeat and called the doctor; George and I discussed what to pack for the hospital visit.

Of course, by the time the doctor called back at 4:40, Oliver had finally peed just minutes earlier. Oh, the relief! We didn’t have to go to the ER! All three of us did a happy dance around the potty.

Wednesday was a little better and Thursday was a lot better. He drank more, he peed more, he ate more, he moved around more, he laughed more. Friday he was pretty much back to normal—meaning, loud and nonstop energy. Meanwhile, I’m EXHAUSTED.

Then George woke up with a cold and cough yesterday. He’s been miserable all weekend.

Maybe I should get a hotel room for a few days.