When it rains...

This morning I was greeted by a couple of joy stealers before I even finished my AM coffee. I handled them fairly well despite not yet being fully caffeine infused. First, my son came upstairs at the unspeakably early (for him) time of 8:30 AM and told me that he thought he had strep. He'd been awake most of the night with a very nasty sore throat that came on out of the blue with no other symptoms other than a bit of a headache. Normally, I'd most likely encourage him to wait it out and just use natural or OTC meds to deal with the symptoms since most sore throats in adults are viral. However, I knew he had strep. I'd like to credit it to great Mom intuition, but in all honesty, anyone could have figured it out. A week ago, his little brother had strep, and the same day that James (the youngest of the family) was diagnosed, Cory (the older and supposedly wiser brother) decided it was perfectly fine to finish James's half eaten piece of pizza, even though yours truly told him it was a REALLY bad idea. "Mom, I KNOW I won't get sick." Famous last words. But, of course, being 21 years old, he does know everything. Or if not QUITE everything, definitely MUCH more than mom. So I wasn't exactly surprised when his strep test was positive. But I will refrain from anymore "I told you so," statements and muster up some motherly sympathy. And not act annoyed that for the second time in a week, the rest of us at home have been exposed to strep.

Then as we were discussing Cory's condition, James came upstairs and wanted to know why the basement bathroom was soaked and smelled bad. Wonderful. Terrific. A kid who needlessly contracted strep AND a bathroom flooded with stinky water. And it wasn't even 9:00 AM. When it rains, it pours, especially in our flood prone basement, but the funny thing (Yes, I have a somewhat dark sense of humor) was that during all the rain we had about a week or so ago, we had no flooding whatsoever, and today we had basement water without any rain. I had to laugh at the irony. Normal people wouldn't laugh. They'd be upset, stressed, annoyed. Especially if that's the only bathroom with a shower and they were definitely planning to shower that day cuz , well, let's just suppose it had maybe been more than a day or two or three (Hey, don't judge. Some people have very dry skin and hair, so they aren't supposed to take tons of showers. Just saying.) But, one thing I don't claim to be is normal. And so, that little tiny soul giggle just couldn't help itself. Up, up, up it bubbled. Sometimes you just have to see the humor in life's challenges and inconveniences. And that's one more way to live more joyfully.