The Plague Comes To VeaseyTown

I read once that nothing fights a nasty virus like a DIET HIGH IN FAT. I embraced that doctrine wholeheartedly (pondering it over a half gallon of Ben & Jerry's) -because type two diabetes and heart attacks aside--I will do anything to avoid a flu bug. However-this particular germ that has been stalking us and has kept my children out of school for two weeks and ruined a perfectly good plan to play hookey at Disneyland--caught up with me yesterday morning and knocked me on my keister just in time to ruin Easter.

The thing about being a Mom and being sick is that there is NOWHERE TO RUN TO, BABY...NOWHERE TO HIDE. If you lay on your bed, curled in a fetal position, a child will find you and ask to cuddle. If you try to escape to the bathroom they will stand outside the door pleading an emergency of their own. So while Kip did his best to run interference for me, I escaped to the one place I thought they might not look for me: in their own room. I fell fast asleep in Annie's toddler bed, my body bent at an impossible angle. Only to be awakened moments later by Jesse, who stood beside me and repetitively thrust the ear thermometer in my ear, checking me for fever, grinding it INTO MY BRAIN, asking "is 104 bad or good Mom?"

Later, I sat beside Annie on the couch watching the thirteenth episode of Sponge Bob and sharing a box of tissues with her. She is still unwell herself, and at one point sneezed loudly. Her exact words were: "Merciful Heavens, this cold has got to end." If I were not so doped up on sudafed, I might ask her where she picked the whole "Merciful Heavens" thing up.