Don't call CPS

You know, yesterday morning I was sitting around thinking -"How did my kiddos get sick?" Frankly, with all of the coverage on the news regarding the swine flu, I could not rule that out either. After all, Ainsley's presentation wasn't altogether typical. She never truly tested positive for strep. So, being the responsible father,I started thinking of all of the places we had been over the weekend. We had visited the zoo. We had been to both parks and schools. Wow, in hindsight, we really were walking typhoid Marys. We had done just about everything you would not want to do in a flu epidemic outside of licking the escalator railings at a mall in Mexico.

And then... I remembered this picture.

(Although you can not see it well Sydney and Norman are in the back.)

Put down the phone! Before you call CPS, I deserve at least one small explanation. You see, this weekend we decided to take Duffer (my mother's sheltie) and Hope (our sheltie) for some shots at the vet clinic. The kids love going to the vet clinic - honest. Anyway, while we were helping Dr. Bob with another patient the kiddos decided to hop into the cages with the puppies. Much to their chagrin (and our laughter) the cages were self locking.

So, you must be thinking, Mark and Lynley took their kids and exposed them to every possible disease imaginable. When all of that did not work, they stuck them in the pig cages at the clinic.

In my defense, these are canine cages. So, the most that I might have exposed them to is canine flu and perhaps some fleas. In reality, I actually kind of fear the poor sick animal that would have had to be in that cage after it had been occupied by my grubby little band of twerplets.

None the less, I think we might have skated by this one without actually causing too much damage. Eventually we will get this parenting thing right.

Until then, our purpose plugs on.