Mr. Murphy I NEED to talk to you....NOW!

We Irish are a very perverse lot! Lord knows we are a well populated and generally cohesive voting block long practised in throwing our collective weight around. So the fact that an ironic/sardonic observation on human nature is called "Murphy's Law" must mean that we as a group were 'fine' with the moniker. No indignant rage over a racial stereotype that I know of on this topic so I must assume Mr. Murphy was proud to sign his name to the collection of observations. In which case, Mr. Murphy WHERE THE H@*# ARE YOU? I have a bone to pick and you must know how verrrrrrry bad it will be to ignore a steamed red haired country woman! Call me, NOW! You see we have this kind of big event happening on Saturday and the star of the show is lacking the necessary luster. Little Miss Julia, our tiny preemie baby, has this habit of masking the early warning signs most medical personnel use to diagnose an impending illness!!! It's spring and our Allergy Queen has been battling itchy hands and scratchy tongue for at least a week now. Normal for her, really! Protocol initiated in plenty of time and NOT ONE WHEEZE has been heard since Good Friday. Meantime, Mari decides to donate her flu bug to Mom and Dad and the three 'healthy' ones, who are walking mucus factories, envied the only one left standing....Julia! We seriously empathised with the Swine Flu victims!! Then last night Julia announces at bedtime that her "itchy" throat is "really bad" so I pop her open and see tonsils that nearly kiss. Enlarged yes, inflamed or abscessed no. So I add Ibuprofen to the protocol, give her a Sucrets to suck on and tuck her in to bed. This morning she's bright as a penny and proclaiming great health, which I confirmed with the thermometer, so off to school she's sent. The two of them giggled, chortled, and acted like circus clowns after school as we ran errands and in high spirits we decided to 'treat' ourselves to a girl's night out at our favorite Mexican cantina. I totally MISSED the first big clue of where the rest of our night was headed....Julia shunned the chips and salsa for coloring and Sprite! It spiralled from there but I was so ten steps behind....... Yep, we ended up at Urgent Care! See what I mean???? Does this look like a child with a VERY POSITIVE STREP reading and bilateral ear infections????????? C'mon folks, just how are we to do our job when the patient has no fever, no loss of appetite until it's days into the infection, no lethargy, no inflamed mucus tissues???? Oh yeah, the first report of ear pain was after the enchiladas were served tonight! We were at Urgent Care fifteen minutes later because the next step for her is a series of asthma attacks which have been ending up in pneumonia lately!

Hoping for a little sympathy vote Mari hopped on the gurney and little did she anticipate that she too would end up with the dreaded throat swab! Negative, yeah!!!!!!!

Suffering patient as she waited for the spot strep test....read sarcasm here! The doctor did help me get through to her by teaching her the difference between itch and scratch, and between scratch and sore. Hopefully this SIXTH positive strep in 14 months will push the pediatrician to act on my plea for an ENT referral! Meanwhile she gets another sick day from school..with only 4 left before the First Communion ceremony.

Waiting and waiting.......so is there any wonder that Barney and Marley were conceived and turned into a comedy show?

This is Mari 'pretending' to milk her blue cow :) Oh, Daddy would be so proud of his little dairy maid! I guess I knew the results when the nurse finally reappeared with Popsicles in hand!

She is soooo going to kill me for posting this but I couldn't resist!!! Mari got a 'sympathy' pop which was much to her liking....obviously. Love the quiet zoom feature on my new camera!

Nice try honey but we saw the 'real' Mari in the shot above but I knew you'd like a chance to show of some of your better manners so I'll post this one just for you Miss Fabulous!!