Downhill

I had grand plans for today- a festive celebration of Dr. Seuss' birthday. We started with green eggs and ham for breakfast. Why is our ham not gween? Is Dr. Seuss coming to our house? Where does he wive? I totally skipped over the chance to discuss life/death/heaven for the 35934th time. Instead, we looked up where he was from (Massachusetts) and then looked at the map and talked about how it was too far away to come here but we were going to have a little party with just us. The website we found, www.seussville.com was pretty cute. Ethan especially enjoyed the music but I wouldn't recommend it, unless you were looking for an excuse to drill through your eardrums. Want some?

However, before we could make Cat in the Hat hats and get to the cupcake event, Ethan succumbed to the bug Evan had been fighting all weekend. For some idiotic reason, this bout of sickness really took me by surprise. I've had this triumphant feeling like we had passed through the winter cold/flu season. Apparently I've blocked the memory of last March, when Evan had RSV and I got pnuemonia. (I doubt Tessa has forgotten, seeing as she spent her final spring break at my house learning how to use a nebulizer and check the cows.) Then early in April, Ethan spent several days in the hospital with rotavirus. So woo hoo, I haven't had to wipe any noses lately but now I am extremely paranoid about barfing. Evan had a temp all weekend and objects to being apart from me for any reason. Ethan has a fever and a little pitiful nest on the floor. He would prefer I lay by him but Evan prefers to be walked around, so someone has been unhappy all day. Not me, of course, I am Florence fricking Nightingale. At least these germs have cured the 3-year-old attitude because Ethan is the politest little patient I have ever seen. "Mommy, could you pwease help me feel better?" he asks in a squeaky, sad voice. "My piwwow is too hot, could you pwease fix it?" I flip his pillow over and offer him a drink. Matt brought home popsicles and Children's Tylenol Melt-Aways. "Daddy bwought me dese? Tank you berry much, Dad." His little sad face breaks my heart- the cracked lips, dark circles, translucent eyelids. I don't know how parents cope with really sick kids. I hope that everyone is well tomorrow morning, mostly because I'm a nice person, and also because we have some GOOD TIMES planned for Wednesday.