Waiting for the Impending Doom

You know that fear and worry that emerges when the people you love start falling like flies from whatever sickness is going around at the time? Who will be next? Where is the freakin' hand sanitizer? Do you really have to touch and breath over everything??!!

That's the impending doom I am referring to here.

This weekend was going to be rough no matter what. You see, Anna recently joined the Indian Princess program. This is a great program for fathers and daughters run by the local YMCA. Girls are grouped into tribes (it goes by your school) and dads and daughters do all sorts of fun stuff like nature hikes, camp outs, and other outdoorsy things. It's Anna's first year and I'm not sure who was more excited to join - Anna or Mike.

This weekend was the first trip to a campground in Wisconsin. Cabins with bunk beds, no bathrooms (in the cabins, that is, there were bathrooms), a mess hall, nature trails, zip lines, ropes courses, and an archery range.

And donuts and running around with headlamps in the dark, and staying up waaay too late, and inappropriate amounts of desserts, and meltdowns over things we cannot seem to understand nor can we properly address. Know what I'm sayin'?

They both came back tired and sticky and worn out, but the weekend, thankfully, was a great success. Anna had a lot of fun and they both agreed it was worth enduring the lack of sleep and rainy weather. I sooo wanted this to be a good experience because I knew it would set the tone for future interest in campouts. And they had a great time!

But as I type this (from the couch, where I'm sleeping), Mike is upstairs in bed, with fever and chills. What he thought was just a weird sore throat this morning turned into a full-fledged fever. One sick man. And please don't think I'm cruel or insensitive but if there is any way I can escape this, I'm going to try.

Anna looks just fine and feels alright, but I'm wondering how long it will be before she comes down with this also. Surely, she didn't escape the germs he was carrying.

And so we wait.

Now that would be enough to turn my mood sour, but then I got a frantic text from a friend telling me to check Anna's hair because one of the girls in her tribe HAS LICE.

LICE, PEOPLE.

Even the word makes me itchy. So I did a quick head inspection (luckily nothing yet) but I'm totally on edge. Anna was too afraid to try the zip lines and ropes courses, which required helmets, so I think our chances of getting it are somewhat diminished. And Mike doesn't think this girl with the lice slept in their cabin because her name didn't sound familiar. But who really knows. Besides, lice has a horrible sneaky way of turning up even when you think you're safe. We've miraculously managed to escape it thus far, but I know it's a matter of time.

The waiting game. Who will get sick? Who will start scratching their head? Where will the next few days take us.

I guess we'll see...