Worst. Birthday. Ever.

If your birthday is today (June 29th), then you share your birthday with such luminaries as Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (auteur of "Le Petit Prince" or, more commonly, the Little Prince), actor Slim Pickens, Washington Senators/Minnesota Twins first baseman Harmon Killebrew, professional nutjob Gary Busey, and Jeff Burton and Martin Truex, Jr., who both drive on the NASCAR circuit, allegedly.

You also share your birthday with both my wife and daughter, the comely and buxom Boudicca and Cookie, respectively. Yes, that's right. My wife and daughter share a birthday, 21 years apart. On top of that, my mother's birthday is tomorrow (June 30th) and my father's 60th was yesterday (June 28th). My son Tank's birthday is in 12 days. Nothing like knocking all the important ones out at the same time.

As you can imagine by the title, things didn't go quite as planned today.

It all started around 1:30 am, when my daughter violently and loudly awoke screaming and fountaining vomit. My wife rushed to her aid, which left me with the unpleasant chore of herding the vomit into a pile of soiled bedclothes and further down the stairs into the washing machine. With that task done, we settled down sometime around 2:00 am, only to be awakened a mere five hours later to the sounds of my son throwing up, he, too, of the screaming variety. Similar to every other day this past week, I was ripped from the middle of a dream (this one involved magic, funny shapes, and the state of Pennsylvania during a rainstorm...everything else was lost in the confusion of the morning).

As I tried to piece together what just happened, the little boy finished his vomiting and immediately, after wiping his mouth, came to give me a good morning kiss. Fortunately, I had enough of my wits about me to duck and cover from the kiss of death. Once everyone was settled, my children were set watching cartoons, my wife headed downstairs to try and sleep some more, and I was to watch over our brood should anything else untoward happen. Just as I was drifting off to sleep once more, I hear a shriek and a cry for help in the form of "I'm poopying in my pants!" I'll just cut this short by mentioning that we went through four different pairs of underwear this morning.

Just as I was finishing helping the boy clean up from his accident, my daughter starts toward the bathroom, to sit on the toilet. She didn't grab the wastebasket on the way, and so when she got sick, it was all over my bathroom floor. I finally got that cleaned up, got everyone settled down again and resting, when I decided to go out and get some supplies for making birthday cakes and gift myself with some breakfast. Away I went to get ginger ale and other supplies for the day. Upon my triumphant return, I discovered that my wife had since succumbed to the plague and she, too, had been vomiting. She can read and knows how to find me on the internet, so to save myself from an involuntary vow of chastity, I won't go into any more detail, but suffice it to say she spent the rest of the day in misery.

Happily, I was able to make a birthday cake which was piecingly enjoyed by all, and now they sleep despite the distant rumble of thunder and the loss of a certain stuffed bear. No one has vomited for hours; no one has left...messes...in their pants or smeared all over the toilet seat for hours; no one has had any gastrointestinal distress for some time. Thank you, Canada Dry. The healing qualities of your elixir of life are most appreciated today.

I thought that my 21st birthday, spent at home with my parents on a Sunday in the great state of Indiana, was a bad birthday. That pales in comparison to the day my wife and daughter endured. I believe I can be thankful for that.

I realize some folks have had worse birthdays, but this misery was doubled due to the double-nature of the birthdays. If it's your birthday today, have a happy one, and I hope that yours wasn't anywhere near as miserable as my wife and daughter's.