Reverie comes home today, which makes me excited enough that I’ve almost forgotten how tired I am.

About two weeks ago I put Magpie into a new, unwashed shirt and she ended up with a rash. It’s not surprising – she has the kind of skin that Victorian England women would have swooned to have, but that’s not very practical in real life. I gave her a bath and put her to bed.

By the next morning the rash had spread all over the place, and she had scratched herself bloody during the night. I called in to work and drove her to the doctor’s….

And discovered she had scarlet fever.

Pardon my ignorance, but I had no idea scarlet fever was still a thing.

Antibiotics and Benadryl made her comfortable. The doctor recommended we stay home and keep her out of daycare for 24-48 hours, and after reading about how serious scarlet fever can be if it doesn’t get treated, I opted for the full 48.

On Wednesday I was just getting ready to load everyone up into the car to head to church, when DragonMonkey broke down into tears, out of nowhere, over something really weird. With a sinking feeling I asked him to stick out his tongue… and yup. It was spotty.

One trip to urgent care later, I now had 3 of my 4 children down with scarlet fever. Sigh.

I stayed home and made it in to work on Friday.

I woke up with a sore throat on Sunday, and Finn was unusually tear-filled, and somewhere in the middle of church I put two and two together. I dragged my plague infested family out of church mid service and headed to the urgent care.

Finn was positive for the scarlet fever strep virus, but I was in the clear. I chalked it up to allergies, or just being tired.

I spent most of Monday home with Finn, but Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday were spent frantically trying to catch up at work, at home, with the pets, with the cooking, etc., etc., etc.

Thursday I woke up exhausted. My sore throat had never gone away, and seemed to be getting worse. I felt ground down, empty. At lunch went to the Thai Food place next door and got myself a hot coconut Tom Kha soup. Whenever I have a scratchy throat or feel a little sick, there’s nothing quite like spicy Tom Kha to set everything right.

Only… only it didn’t work at all. Thursday afternoon dragged by, and the more the minutes went by, the sicker I felt.

By the time I came home, I told the kids to feed themselves and just curled up on the couch under a blanket. The Bean wasn’t home until almost 8 pm, and by then I had a fever of 102 and was feeling too sick to make the almost hour-long drive to urgent care.

By 2 am I really regretted not making that drive, because my “my throat really hurts” had morphed into “Yeah, this hurts as appendicitis, and I can’t think through this pain”. Gargling didn’t help, Tylenol barely touched it, and I spent the rest of the night just lying there in bed waiting for the sun to rise so I could go to the doctor.

I didn’t have scarlet fever – I had generic old strep throat, so I stayed home on Friday and waited for the antibiotics to kick in.

The thing is, I’ve never been sick like I was sick this time. I know it sounds all hand flappy, but I really think this was one of those illnesses that would have taken me down in the 1800s, without antibiotics. Usually after 24 hours on antibiotics, I feel great…. But this time I could actually feel the strep throat fighting against the antibiotics, and worst of all, almost winning. I’d take a 500 mg amoxicillin, the sore throat would get better… and then after about 3-4 hours, right before I was due to take another one, the sore throat would ramp back up, and I could actively feel myself getting sick again.

It wasn’t until Sunday afternoon that the antibiotics finally built up enough and I felt myself getting better.

Of course, as ALWAYS HAPPENS EVERY TIME I GET SICK, I was also contacted by more than one person and offered the chance to do some writing jobs. Normally when that happens I’m ecstatic, but I was sick…. And to top it off, a couple of months ago the twins had pushed our old Chromebook off the table and dashed it on the ground, so between then and now I’ve been doing all of my writing on my cell phone, which is about as much fun as a root canal.

Halfway through tip-tapping the project out on my phone aching with fever and strep throat, I texted the Bean. “Walmart has a sale on a cheap Chromebook for $149. I *am* buying it. Where is the emergency credit card?”

The rest of the typing went off without a hitch. It’s amazing how much better I can think with a keyboard under my fingers.

Yesterday was spent frantically running around like a…. well, like this year’s birthday card:

The boys missed the bus in the morning, I was late to work because I had to drop them off, and when the moment I got off a full day at work it felt like I was off to the races.  I had to run home, feed horses, drop off my kids, and then head right back out to pick up someone else’s kids and and dash off to Portland, albeit for the best of reasons: they had a new baby brother to meet.

Babies never used to be my thing, but now that I’ve had four of my own, I really enjoy other people’s newborns, and watching the kids’ faces as they met their new sibling – the pure joy in their reaction, was totally worth the drive. Besides, there’s a chemical rush that happens in my brain whenever I smell that new baby smell, and I’m not just saying that. It’s an actual, proven, scientific thing in some people. Little bitty baby squeaks turn me into one of those mares that runs the fence line and tires to steal other mares foals. It’s only with the little bitty babies though – once they gain the ability to look around and sit up and crawl and be mobile, I don’t get any urge to steal them from people.

In addition to helping out a friend, one of the best parts about meeting the baby was what was waiting for me in a plastic bin in the corner of her room:  Her placenta!

I know, it sounds gross.  Trust me, I’m still not into eating them, even if I had asked her to give it to me.  Also, in case you’re curious, there really isn’t a non-creepy way to ask for people’s used body parts, even if it is for a good cause.

I tossed the placenta, the umbilical cord, and her kids into the car, drove them back to her ex husband’s house, and then headed up to Rainier where I met up in the parking lot and traded the placenta for a brand new weanling horse halter.

Okay, it was less weird than that. Mika had offered to pick up the halter from the tack store before it closed, and I offered to transport the placenta so she could take it with her to train her (and other people’s) Search and Rescue Dogs for emergencies. I mean, if you’re going to train dogs to hunt for bodies, you need to train them with actual body parts.

If you are wondering what to do with your kids’ old teeth or any other body parts you have laying around, may I recommend contacting your local SAR dog group and offering it to them?

I drove back home, went to sleep, woke up, cooked a pound of bacon to start the day off right, fed the horses, got the kids off to school, came back inside……

Where I found The Bean completely immobilized, having thrown out his back. Together we managed to get him settled into a chair with a hot water bottle where he grimaced and stayed frozen until the pounds of Tylenol and Ibuprofen I poured into him began to take effect.

I put my foot down for the first time ever on him riding the motorcycle to work, so we transferred the twins’ car seats into our project car (The Bean fixes cars in his spare time… hahahahahaha…. “spare time”. That’s a good one. But seriously, he’s a crazy good mechanic.)

The twins were horrified. In retrospect, I don’t think they’ve ever been in any car but Jean Claude Damn Van. Finn was genuinely confused at the sight of his car seat in another car, and Magpie froze like a spooking horse and almost refused to go in. I was running late to work again, so maybe I could have led them through it a little nicer, but I was feeling frantic as I watched the minutes tick by. Eventually I coaxed them both into their car seat.

As I mentioned, the Civic is a project car so I drove it slowly and carefully, treating it like it was made of glass. It made for a very long, noisy ride. The car itself wasn’t noisy…. It was the twins.

“GO FASSER!”

“Finn, I’m not going faster.”

“GO FASSER, RIGHT NOW. PEASE. GO FASSER!”

“No, Finn, I’m not going faster. Don’t order me around with ‘right now’, either. It’s rude.”

“New car? New car? I wide new car New car? I wide new car? New car? New car? New car? New car? New car? New car? New car? New car? New car—“

“GO FASSER!”

“New car? New car? New car? New car? New car? New car? New car? New car? New car? New car? New car? New car?” Ne-“

“Yes, Magpie, you are riding in a new car.”

“Gank You, Mami. Gank you, wide new car.”

“You’re welcome, Magpie, for letting you ride in a new car..”

“GO FASSER? GO FASSER, PEASE?”

“No, Finn, I’m not going faster.”

“Whassat?”

“Magpie, that’s a sun roof. See? This car has a sun roof.”

“Sun woof?”

“Yes, Magpie.”

“WOW. BOOFUL!”

“Yes, it’s beautiful, Finn. It is nice having a sun roof in a car.”

“Dis car have sun woof? Sun woof? Dis car have sun woof? Sun woof? Sun woof? Sun woof? Sun woof? Sun woof? Sun woof? Sun woof? Sun woof? Sun woof? Sun woof? Sun woof? Sun woo–”

“YESSS! YES, MAGPIE. YES, THIS CAR HAS A SUN ROOF.”

“Gank you, Mami. Gank you sun woof, Mami.”

“Great, now I feel guilty. Sigh. You’re welcome, sweetie, for the sun roof.”

“GO FASSER? GO FASSER? PEASE GO FASSER?”…..

Etc., etc., ad nauseum.

Guys, they’re cute, but sometimes…. Sometimes listening to two year old twins on repeat makes my brain feel like it’s liquefying.

Anyways, Reverie will be here in a few hours. I still need to finish my work day, stop by the credit union to empty it out for the final payment, drive to daycare and get all four kids, and then go home.

The plan is to trailer Reverie with her mom, load them into the stalls until Reverie settles in a little bit and we get the paperwork done, and then Kathleen will take Sparkle home and Reverie will be mine.

I’d like to say I’m relaxed and comfortable with the concept, but I’m kind of freaking out on the inside. I wanted to have the barn clean, and all the winter’s hay loaded up, and tons of shavings, and understand everything about foal nutrition and be a foal training expert and have all my tack lined up all pretty, and my barn scrubbed and shiny and ready and, and, and…

Well, I guess they say you should begin as you mean to go on, so….

Wish me luck, guys.

HERE I GO.