Charlie Brown's Disease

We've been living in a dream world until now. Once children reach a certain age their ears tend to become infected with a common disease that lasts until they have children of their own. I think it's called Charlie Brown's disease, because all they can hear when adults speak is "wah wah wah wah." We took every precaution we could, and our son was able to keep it somewhat at bay until he turned four. Perhaps a part of it is that he has a bad cold, but no matter how many times my wife and I asked him to cover his cough, our request went unacknowledged.  Our daughter, on the other hand, was more susceptible to it. She succumbed to the disease at age two. We also have a nine-month old, and prospects aren't looking up.

To our children's credit, they spend seven hours in the car driving home from Thanksgiving vacation. They also had to deal with tired, inattentive parents once we got home. They are all sick. Finally, we are all dealing with the end of vacation blues and hanging on to the fun memories of the past week with our family and sweets.