Icky

How can one be hot and cold at the same time? I don't get it. You're freezing so you get a blanket because a blanket sound so good and comfort-y, but as soon as you get all cozy it becomes clear that putting that blanket on your body is suddenly the equivalent of putting a blanket of molten lava on your body, so you throw the blanket off only to find yourself chittering and chattering and shaking and wondering where the hell that blanket went.

I ended up sleeping with the blanket curled around one arm and that arm tucked under my chin, the other arm thrown out and not touching anything but the bed and only touching it because I couldn't defy gravity. One leg was wrapped up in blanket and the other was uncovered from hip to ankle, but I had to have my foot covered.

Being sick bites. Hard.

I slept a lot today.

And why am I so fascinated by those shows about cavemen on the Science Channel?

The one about the killer, human-flesh-chewing ants this morning was nightmare fodder, I'm tellin' ya.

By 2 I was feeling moderately human again and the house felt cold and claustrophobic, so I went to pick the kids up at school. Kady, after throwing her body into me at warp speed and hugging me so fiercely I thought I was going to break or at the least dent, informed me that her belly had hurt all day. I tried to remember what they served in the cafeteria for lunch because through careful research I've discovered that most bellyaches after school come from hunger when one or more of my children opt out of lunch, but my brain was still melted/frozen from the fever/chills thing I'd had going on earlier, so I instead just patted her on the head and said we'd get a snack when we got home.

Tot One spent Saturday night puking and performing various other unpleasant bodily functions that involve toilets. She apparently had the same thing Sam and I had back before school started - she was so dizzy she couldn't walk. Bless her little heart. I kind of knew, in the back of my mind, that we were long overdue for a hostile germ takover.

I got everyone home, they attacked the snack bowl, then bam - one fruit snack and a sip of grape juice and Kady was gagging. Bad idea, that snack. Baaaad idea. I told her to spit the fruit snack out, for Pete's sake, and please don't puke on me, child. I told her to go to the toilet if she was going to hurl and man, she high-tailed it. After I cleaned up the half-chewed fruit snack that had oh-so-elegantly missed the trashcan, I found Kady in the bathroom, kneeling before the ol' porcelain throne. She was pale and had big circles under her eyes. Oy vey.

With Ab's help I fixed Kady up the usual pallet on the couch - I drape my couch in sheets so that if the ailing child does happen to miss the trashcan, they at least won't get my couch with a direct hit. I'd rather wash a sheet than a couch. She laid there awhile, moaned and groaned, curled her knees up under her chin and moaned some more. Then, bam she was fine.

Agh, I was frustrated. But at the same time, too tired to tell her the story of The Boy Who Cried Wolf. So I sent her outside to play, which is what she wanted to do.

She played outside with the other kids for about 15 minutes then was back on the couch, curled up with her knees under her again. Within a few minutes she was sound asleep. I called my supervisor and left a voice mail that I might not be in again tomorrow. Kady slept through dinner, a rather rowdy and loud game (or seven) of PacMan between Tot Two and Sam, four showers, three out-loud readings by Tots One and Two and Sam, and then the bringing-out of every Littlest Pet Shop critter my kids own and the building of a critter town in my living room floor. I sat in a stupor and watched them, watched my pale 5-year-old sleep in the midst of the noise and wondered how much filing would be on my desk come Wednesday if I miss yet another day of work.

She woke up around 7:30 and seemed fine, but still pale and complaining of a headache. I fixed her a piece of toast, she ate it, put on her pajamas, got her woobie, Mimzy, both Build-a-Bears, curled up on the couch and said, "I fink I'll go back to sweep now."

I ended up moving her to my bed after draping it with the sheets that had previously draped the couch. I'll sleep in a raincoat so if she barfs toward me and not the trashcan I'll be somewhat protected. Paul's camped out on the couch because he's spent the entire day with (oh he's gonna kill me for writing this out loud) a case of the runs.

I love it when school starts and the germs are new and fresh and eager to infect.