The Circle of [my] Life

The first thing that pops into your head: The Lion King, right? But that's not the circle I'm talking about. In my world, the circle of life starts with a bug - you know the kind that makes you vomit up your favorite food (making sure you'll never eat it again), gives you a terrible fever that causes hallucinations or takes away your ability to breathe. I'm talking about our friends Virus and Bacteria.

In my house, the circle usually starts with our two-and-a-half year old son. Typically his symptoms include a runny nose, fever, a cranky attitude and nasty, nasty diapers. After a few days, he's back on his feet running around and being loud but now Mom's got the bug. It affects Mom differently. Mom has a migraine, is exhausted, vomiting at the thought of food, can barely get out of bed, has blurry vision and can't sleep. Again, after a few days when Mom is feeling better it's Dad's turn. It also hits dad in a different way. He likes to pretend he's fine, he feels sick, moans a lot and needs a lot of TLC to get him through it. Like with baby and Mom, after a few days Dad will be back on his feet. But as we all know, a circle has no end. So it's usually just a matter of weeks before the bug has transformed again and is sneaking into our lives - only this time it will be different, causing the family to go through box after box of kleenex and a bottle of lotion to soothe the sore noses before hiding away, plotting it's next move.

We scrub the house, change the sheets, replace the toothbrushes and do all of the dishes - but it doesn't help. These buddies of ours are immortal. Someone needs to shoot an arrow through our circle - give the bug a run for it's money....I bet he'd be too confused by the hole (or at least let it block off the "Mom" section of the circle)!