It's raining today.  I love rain!  I love storms!  I love any kind of weather that is different from the norm.  My roof is tin and I awoke to the sound of the pouring rain hitting my roof.  There is nothing like the sound of a tin roof in the rain!

This week's Blog Fodder topic,  Blog Fodder #3,  has been posted.  Judy @ Welcome to my World of Dreams submitted the question:   "Do you have any memories of a childhood illness?"  

I like this one.  I have a few stories about illnesses and a few are even funny.  I'll start with the not too funny one though.

The worse sickness that I can remember was my 8th birthday.  I know it was my 8th because my mother made me an 8 shaped cake and I have a photograph of me laying on my bed, too weak to even sit up, with the 8 shaped cake laying on my tummy so I could try to blow out the candles.  I had a birthday party most years and this 8th year was going to be a pool party and I was so excited for it!  What a cool party, a pool party!  Mom had arranged to take us all to the MDC rink & pool in Weymouth, MA and I had waited with anticipation for over a month.  Of course, the whole thing had to be cancelled.   

I was a slight hypochondriac child.  I was constantly spraining an ankle, limping, going to the nurse at school, wanting to use crutches etc.  During one occasion I went up the stairs to my bedroom limping on my right leg, but when I came back down, according to my stepfather, I was limping on the wrong foot.  I can't remember if he pointed it out to me then or if he told me this story later in life.  My 13 year old daughter is very much like this as well, and it is a struggle to deal with because I've been there, done that.  

We had a boat when I was a girl.  We would go on day excursions from Hingham Harbor and explore the Massachusetts South Shore waterfront.  On this particular weekend we got to the boat and I was suddenly inflicted with the worst stomach pain of my life.  It wasn't sea sickness, I felt like my appendix was ready to burst.  Still, to this day, I can't remember feeling anything quite this bad, with the exception of labor.  I was not running a fever or nauseous or anything - just severe pain in my belly.  I spent the entire time on the boat (and off for that matter) bent at the waist so my upper half was horizontal.  I couldn't get any relief at all unless I was in this position.  I laugh now just thinking about it because I literally walked that way the whole day.  My mother laughs too, at the memory of it.  Can't you just picture it?  Can't you just picture what others must have thought?  I could not walk straight up.  I never did figure out what that illness was all about but I was fine the next day and walking up-right again.  

Lastly this story must get the Honorable mention....  Nana raised 9 children, but she never had one quite like me and she will tell you that to this day!  Nana took me to Florida for a week to visit her parents, my great-grandparents.  It was a wonderful trip and special because it was just the two of us.  Somehow I managed to catch the chicken pox towards the end of our vacation.  The first thing I did when we got on the plane to go home was to announce to the passengers that I had the chicken pox.  I was young and didn't know why my announcing such a thing was a problem, but Nana got upset that I told everyone.  Yes.... thinking back I don't think I would have wanted to be on that plane!