If there is some kind of category in the Guinness Book of World Records for whose kids got sick the most number of times in a three-month period, I am pretty sure we are close to upsetting the former title holders. A friend of mine who moved to a new city one fall and then had an incredibly long winter of illness upon illness speculated that the stress of a move may make you less able to fight off sickness. I think she might be right about that. Whatever the reason, we have been sick more in the last few months than we have ever been in the history of our little family, and it's going to be hard for me to look back on this period of our lives without smelling pink amoxicyllin and Children's Motrin.

On the most recent sick visit we made to our pediatrician's office, he opened the door to the exam room, saw us sitting there (Again.) and joked that we should just open up a tab. I laughed and said I'd rather get my own parking space, but I only laughed because I didn't want to cry in the office. (Again.) On that particular day I was there with Isaac, who had broken out in the most spectacular rash I have ever seen in my life after having a bad reaction to the penicillin-based antibiotic he had been on. This episode started out a week earlier with a cold that morphed into an ear infection and a whopping case of bronchiolitis which required a super-fun Saturday night excursion to what I now think of as Pediatric Urgent Care Purgatory. If you have small kids, you know about this place. This is where you wait in a tiny overheated room with the sickest kids in three counties for two hours while debating whether you should just sprint out the door before you catch something even worse than what your kid has now or keep waiting to see the doctor. Thankfully you don't have too much time to think about that dilemma. You have to focus all your energy on keeping your sick child from getting down on the floor and licking the toys thoughtfully put in the waiting room for the amusement of I don't even know who, because no one is letting their kids play with those toys. At this point in my parenting experience, waiting room toys look like giant germ lollipops. That night in urgent care I think I actually earned the distinction of Sickest Kid in the Room. Isaac would cough and all the other parents would cringe and cover their kids' faces. Isaac probably could have had the run of all those toys and no one else would have let their kids anywhere near them once he touched them.

Usually, the point at which you go to the doctor and get medicine is rock bottom and from there things improve. Usually. This time it was the start of a week-long experiment at the end of which we learned that Isaac like his mother before him is allergic to penicillin. First there was epic throwing up of the medication. Then that stopped and the medicine stayed down for a while, which was good in that the ear infection subsided. But on about day eight of the antibiotic, I got Isaac up from a nap and noticed these red welts on his chunky little thighs. I didn't think much of it until I changed his clothes a while later and noticed that the rash was spreading -- rapidly. It was like if I kept looking at his skin, I could see new bumps popping up before my eyes. I called the doctor's office and was told to just keep an eye on it and call back if certain other more alarming symptoms popped up, which they didn't. But "alarming" took on a whole new meaning the next morning, when Isaac woke up looking like he was made of pink velour. I wish I had a picture of this rash. It was unbelievable. It was so incredible that our doctor asked if he could take Isaac and show him to another doctor in the practice, just so they could marvel over the splendor of the rash from a medical standpoint. Like I said, you could put us in a book.

To fast forward through more whining, I'll just say that right now we're all healthy. Of course, the fact that I just typed that sentence probably means one of us will come down with a rare tropical illness in the next 12 hours. If that happens, I am glad to know that there will be plenty of people who will help us out. During the worst of Isaac's illness, which eventually turned into some form of a cold for all the rest of us too, I did get to learn that we are not alone even if we are new here. My in-laws took Kate to church with them the Sunday after I spent half the night in urgent care with Isaac, giving Dan and I a much-needed few hours to just focus on taking care of him. In the following week our community group from church prayed for us and brought us a homemade meal that tasted like heaven in the midst of a week that had contained way too much cold pizza and takeout. The week after that, my mom came for a visit and played with Kate and did all our laundry and let me take naps. It's amazing how much better clean laundry and a couple of hours of sleep can make you feel.

It was a hard month, and I had a pretty terrible attitude through a lot of it, but every day God let me see little mercies, small things that made me think I could probably keep going for another little while after all. It made me thankful that we're really healthy most of the time and that my kids have only ever had run-of-the-mill childhood illnesses. I'm thankful for Dan, who kept telling me it would be OK and who sent me out of the house by myself a few evenings just so I could remember what the outside world looked like after days shut inside with sick kids. Now that we're well I find myself giving thanks much more frequently for health and the ability to have a totally unremarkable day when our schedule hums along with play times and nap times and dinner-making and laundry. Praise the Lord for normal. It has never looked so beautiful.