It's been a close call this weekend. Mom arrived here on Thursday, and Alex's birthday was Friday. Coincidentally, Friday was also the carnival at Lincoln school, which made Alex think that it was all for his birthday. I took the afternoon off and went to visit Alex's classroom with Mom, Beth, and Missy, and brought treats for the class (Oreos and juice). For dinner, we told Alex he could pick out any restaurant he wanted...and he chose Golden Corral. Then we went to the carnival, where they had the inflatable bouncy things, and the putting greens, fishing ponds, basketball bowling, cake walks, chaos, cheap toys, etc. Saturday was Alex's party. In the early afternoon his friends started arriving here, and then we loaded up about 10 kids into 3 cars and headed to Bremen Bounce. I gave Alex, Luke, and Nicholas my video camera to entertain themselves for the drive there, and it was a very silly time. But a little while into the fun, Alex started coming back to where we were sitting asking for a drink. And then a tiny bit later, another. And the time in between him coming to us kept getting shorter. Then he came to us in tears because he didn't feel good. We thought maybe he was feeling overwhelmed by the crowd and noise, so I took him out for some fresh air and all he wanted to do was sit in the truck, which he did with his eyes closed. We went back in, but he never went back to playing, but he did rally some when we left. We went back home, finished up the party, did cake and presents, the kids went home, and we rested the rest of the day, but he was running a fever and had a sore throat. Sunday we all skipped church and stayed quiet at home as much as possible, except for going out for pizza, which seemed to wear Alex out, and despite being excited about pizza when we left, he didn't eat much of anything. Today, the visit to the doctor confirmed strep throat.