Emma has been sick forever. At least since September. She’s had colds, strep throat, more colds, a stomach bug, even more colds, a sinus infection. She finished her second round of antibiotics two days ago, and had that brief reprieve from sickness only to wake up today with a sore throat. She didn’t have a fever, so I went ahead and sent her to school

I was sitting in a meeting at work when the phone began to vibrate. I looked at it and saw the name of her school pop up and knew what they were going to tell me. I stepped out of the meeting to answer it and yep. She was sick again. In the nurse’s office with a sore throat and very low fever. I took her to the doctor, and she said that it’s probably a virus but did a strep test anyway. Of course, we won’t know the results for two days.

I don’t think it’s strep throat. I think it’s a virus, but I hate that she has been so sick and missed so many days that today she told me, “I didn’t want to go to the office because I knew they’d say I had to go home, and I didn’t want to miss any more days.” When they say that, you know they’re tired of being sick!

Despite this, I think of how much better it is when the kids are sick now than when they were very little. For one, they don’t get sick nearly as often…except for Emma. She appears to in the fall. However, the mere fact that one is sick doesn’t mean they all will get it. Sometimes only one does, which is a change from when they were little and one sick child meant three weeks of battling illness as it moved from one to the next to the next and back again. Also, they don’t appear to feel quite as bad as they did when they were tiny, and they can take care of themselves and don’t need the constant attention that they did when they were toddlers.

I also realized that I’ve learned a lot about sick kids in the last 14 years since my first one was born. Here’s some stuff I’ve learned:

• I don’t need a thermometer to tell if someone has a fever. In fact, sometimes I know that they do, but the thermometer doesn’t register it.
• No matter how much better they say they feel after throwing up, don’t feed them. Just don’t.
• The doctor is kinda guessing about what’s wrong with them. I mean, it’s educated guessing–very educated–but it’s still just eliminating some possibilities and then guessing.
• Ibuprofen is my friend. Tylenol, not so much. Tylenol barely touches my kids’ fevers, but ibuprofen will knock fevers out of the park.
• The arrival of spring will always make me happy because it means an end to snot and other bodily fluids that somehow end up all over my clothes.
• Kids get sick and get better and get sick again and in the end they will probably be OK. That doesn’t mean I don’t worry about them and try to pinpoint exactly what is causing their sicknesses and why they’re happening, but it does mean I can trust that God has created their bodies to heal.

I could go on and on, but I’m so sleepy that I’ll just go to sleep and hope no one wakes me up with a tummy ache…or an ear ache…or a fever…or…need I go on?