Lake Michigan picnic

I'd like to tell you how much we enjoyed our lakeside picnic Friday night. After all, we were meeting a group of our friends and I'd prepared a lovely trio of salads: southwest black bean and corn, pasta with goat cheese, garden-fresh tomatoes and a few choice veggies, and, finally, our summer favorite- a pleasing cucumber-tomato combo.


The thing is, we never made it to he picnic. Both boys were sick Friday afternoon. Pikachu (the 7 year-old formerly known as Splinter) was burning up and lethargic when I picked him up from camp. (Counselor: yeah, he seems a little out of sorts...) He had a fever of 102!

Not only did we miss the picnic, we barely made it to sleep Friday night. It was the worst night we've had in years. One child or the other up was up just about every hour of the night. Poor boys. Poor Mommy (and to a lesser extent, Daddy).

Thankfully, both boys were doing better by Saturday afternoon when the mail arrived. As I was taking Pikachu's temperature, Smartypants burst into the room with a large box, "Look what just came!"

I put the thermometer down and asked him to bring me some hand sanitizer, so my germy hands would not contaminate whatever wonders awaited in the box. I did a quick wipedown and opened a box of...hand sanitizer! The folks at Germ-X sent me some samples; with two sick kids in the house, the timing could have been better.

Sometimes life imitates art and sometimes it imitates commercials.