If this house is rockin’…

…chances are it’s because someone is either throwing up or suffering a rafters-rattling coughing fit.

There is no joy in Mudville, or on Christmas Island.

After two long, horrible, discouraging weeks of The Missus’ coughing growing worse, and her list of symptoms growing longer, I bullied her into going to the doctor yesterday. I’m not proud of my tactics (and I won’t go into them here, so I don’t look like the total creep I am) but it got me what I wanted – a diagnosis (bronchitis) and a remedy (narcotic-laced cough syrup and inhalers).

Then (and on the same day as my wife’s illness is finally diagnosed), only two days after The Man Cub’s antibiotics ran out from his previous brush with illness, day care calls and guess who’s blowing chunks all over the joint? Right.

So I had to run the non-babyseat-equipped car to the doctor’s where The Missus was being diagnosed and swap it out for the Man Cub-approved vehicle and race out to day care, just in time to be barfed on myself.

Which leads me to wonder – why in god’s name does anybody have more than one child?? My tiny family is killing me by degrees as it is, if we added anybody else to it I think I’d just spontaneously combust, as an involuntary self-defense measure.

So I’ve been up since 3 a.m., dealing with the boy till 4:30. Then when he finally conked out for longer than 15 minutes, the hoarse, wracking coughs from the master bedroom have kept me up the rest of the pre-dawn. (I took the couch the better to hear the boy, and the better for The Missus to not hear the boy, get some sleep and maybe, oh I don’t know, get well some day.)

As soon as they’re both up, I’m heading back to bed. It won’t get any of my weekend newspaper-making responsibilities dispatched, but right now I’m concentrating on trying not to get sick myself. The last time the boy had the stomach flu, I got it too, and my ancient, abused stomach just doesn’t tolerate projectile vomiting as well as it did back in the day when I used to drink myself to that point several times a week. These days, it’s really bad. I’m a 46-year-old man with the stomach of an eighty-year-old and the teeth a hundred-year-old British coal miner.

I do have one happy piece of news to report. Before the doctor’s appointment and the call from day care, I slipped out late Friday morning to see “Iron Man,” and man am I glad I did. In addition to likely being the only good thing that I will experience all weekend, it totally kicked ass! Robert Downey Jr. is perfectly cast in the title role, the effects rocked, the story was timely and engaging and even Gwyneth Paltrow’s wan lack of screen presence didn’t ruin the film. And did I mention the effects rocked? Some of the reviews warn that the film drags a bit in the middle, but it didn’t for me.

“Iron Man” is an excellent way to kick off what looks like a mixed-bag of summer blockbusters. “The Dark Knight” trailer looked good, but the “Indiana Jones” preview left me a little cold. Even the new Narnia film looked more promising, although how they’re going to accomplish all that fantasy bloodletting within the confines of a family-friendly PG rating is beyond me. Probably wait for video for that one. Oh, and the “Speed Racer” trailer completely blew my mind. Can’t say for sure how the film will play, but it looks amazing. I’ll be there opening day just to have my mind blown by the virtual world the Brothers Wachowski (of the “Matrix” trilogy) have concocted. And “The Hulk” reboot, which opens next month, doesn’t even have a trailer playing yet. This one has “stinkeroo” written all over it. I predict that I will see it anyhow and regret the loss of two hours of my life almost immediately.

Better wrap this up. It’s 6:30 a.m., my stomach is beginning to feel a bit queasy, and already-sick people will soon begin waking up and requiring attention.

To sum up then, only two things to remember; seek out “Iron Man” and avoid our family like the plague. Unless of course you’re into the plague, in which case, come on by. We can use all the help we can get over here, and we have plague aplenty to go around.