A few days ago, the boys (AKA, Team Crazy) decided that we don’t have enough insanity in our lives, and really we needed to make a trip to the emergency room. You see, the boys think “ER” stands for “Excitement Room.”

But let me back up a moment and explain. On Friday morning the weather was nice – a bit overcast and cool for an early August day in Maryland. A good day for an outdoor activity with Team Crazy. Anytime I can get them outside and run them, I do it. We opted to go to Down’s Park, which skirts the Magothy River and the Chesapeake Bay. Sounds lovely, right? And it is. As long as you stay out of the water.

My mother and I packed up the boys and drove off to the park. We arrived, parked near the playground, and the boys played on the equipment for a bit. Corey announced that he wanted to hike down to the beach area, and I, thinking nothing of it, readily agreed. The boys spent about 20-30 minutes playing along the water’s edge, building sandcastles, checking out seashells and bits of rock, and just generally wading about in the water. It was nice.

Until the park ranger approached us and said this, “I don’t mean to scare you, but we’ve had 16 cases of flesh-eating bacteria recently. Nobody should be in the water. If you’ve been in the water and you have open cuts, they’re advising you to go to the hospital.” Guess who had cuts all over his legs from scratching open mosquito bites? Both members of Team Crazy. Panic anyone? Flesh-eating bacteria?! Where were the warning signs?! I’ll tell you where: nowhere at that park or anywhere else I’ve been close to the water. Visions of the news stories showing people losing their limbs to this bacteria flashed through my mind.

So as I started to freak out and calculate my next move without terrifying the boys, the ranger proceeded to tell me that they have a hose attached to one of the nearby buildings, and that I should hose them off immediately. I practically broke into a run, leaving my mother and the boys behind in my fearful quest for that hose. When we all finally reached the hose, I had them strip down to their underwear (I briefly considered just having them streak naked back to the car, but I had no towels with me) and I hosed them down thoroughly. I then decided that, no matter what we did later, the first step was to wash them thoroughly with soap.

I drove home like Cruella Deville chasing down 99 puppies, and on the way I called their father. He suggested I call the pediatrician. I did. The nurse a the pediatrician’s office advised me to take them to the ER, noting that, should they be seen by the doctor, he would likely send us to the ER anyway, as they have more testing capability. We then called my mother-in-law for her opinion as a nurse (and scared the bejesus out of her – sorry, Conni), and she told us to go to the ER too.

Fine. We went home, showered the boys until their skin was nearly raw, covered all their cuts in Neosporin, threw fresh clothes on them (and me, as I was thoroughly soaked at that point), and went to the ER. At the ER, they looked at me like I was a crazy person. And that was without witnessing my bad driving! As in, “Here’s another lunatic parent overreacting.” I explained the situation, but the doctor informed me that there were no tests to order, as both boys were asymptomatic. She did say that we had done the right thing by showering them first (no showers in the ER), and she prescribed topical and oral antibiotics for 5 days as a precaution. This may have been partly because Corey has tricuspid atresia, however. Better safe than sorry with the heart child.

The boys took the entire ordeal in stride. Unlike their mother and grandmothers, they were never scared. They did ask some questions, but mostly they were interested in working the TV remote and making the hospital’s automatic chair go up and down, up and down, up and down. At one point I was getting ready to text our family members to give them an update, and I asked the boys if they had anything to say. They played dead on their favorite automatic chair while I snapped their picture, and they said, “Yeah. Tell them we’re gonna die, but that’s okay because we get to go up and down on this chair.”

Right. It’s all about the chair. See? Excitement room.

The morning after our ordeal the boys greeted me with impy grins and jokes like, “My leg fell off in the middle of the night!” Or, my personal favorite, “Feel my ear. I think it’s loose.” Nice. Any chance to taunt their mother. Luckily they are fine, though, and I am very relieved.

However, I’ve had enough of the excitement room to last a lifetime.