Often I write these posts late at night and post them the following day. This will be no exception.
Tonight ends one of the longer weekends of my parenting career.
The culprit: Influenza. Or just a nasty cold.
Whatever name we attribute to this particular illness, its devastation is nevertheless widespread: used Kleenex scattered in piles across the floor, on nightstands, in beds, on couches; stained bed sheets and pillowcases; snotty faces, phlegmy hair, ceaseless whining, no sleep, painful crying, and the overwhelming stench of illness and uncleanliness.
Thankfully, we're all too stuffed up to notice.
Monday is day four of our drama. Minor coughs and runny noses gave way to fevers and worse coughing over the weekend.
We're in desperate need of sleep. Smartypants was up at 4:30 coughing and never returned to bed. The night before, Smiley joined me on the couch watching television until 3am, unable to lay down without hacking up a toddler lung.
Couch-ridden for an entire weekend, unable to escape the confines of the house, we suffered through our self-imposed quarantine watching movies, fussing, and sometimes laughing uncontrollably until someone needed a tissue.
Thankfully, my mom risked her health to come watch the girls while I went grocery shopping.
The break was welcome.
Besides, self-imposed quarantines really blow when you have no food in the house.
Anyway, we'll hopefully emerge back into the world this week, bright and chipper and not at all bitter. Well, bright and chipper anyway.
There are few things quite so heart wrenching as a sick child who can't understand why her body is rebelling. Two sick children is worse. Two sick children and a sick daddy... You see where I'm going.
