The plague - at least my plague

I have the flu. It might be the plague, but we'll just call it the flu. By plague I mean evil virus that takes over your lungs and entire upper-respiratory system and bends it to its will. Not the other kind of plague.

This is of course the week that anyone who might remotely want to help me with this is out of town including my husband. OK, so it's only a couple of days that overlap while they're all gone. But it feels more dramatic to say a week.

Here are the things that go on when you're a mom and the plague comes to town:

1) Your 3 year old hears you cough and says "Mommy, I want to save you!" Then gives you a hug.

2) But, after coming out of the bathroom you find that the same delightful three year old has been eating brown sugar out of the pantry with a spoon... and trailing it across the kitchen floor.

3) Not to be outdone, the Boop, the five year old, was clearly "cooking" in the kitchen while I was on the sofa. I mean, I could see into the kitchen and she looked fine, but I couldn't see past her shoulders. I thought she was having a nice snack at the table (banana and crackers). What I found when I dragged myself over there was that she'd sliced the banana in 10 fifty cent sized pieces, left the peel all over the table, and combined brown sugar with something liquid in two bowls and was preparing to add raisins to it when I intercepted her. I need to buy more brown sugar. And mop the floor.

4) As a side note, cough syrup should work, not just taste bad.

5) Your 5 year old declares that her Barbies all have fevers and upon inspection you find them laid out in the bathroom on a towel with "cold compresses" (her words) of wet toilet paper all over them. They looked like soggy, Barbie mummies. And if you think the wet toilet paper stayed in the bathroom and didn't require a much more extensive clean up, you've forgotten already that I have a three year old.

6) You move from the sofa to the kitchen and your five year old shouts, "You're moving! Are you healed? Are you all better! Look, you stood up!"

7) Also, I had a weird desire to do all the laundry in the house. I think this comes from a case of cabin fever. I'm very susceptible to cabin fever and all the hallucinations that come with it. Now I'm faced with a pile of clean laundry that I think might win in a battle. It looks like a 50's horror slime monster, only clean clothes, not slime.

Signing off now. The monster, the zombie, and the red bird (all names given and enforced by the three year old for himself, Boop, and his big sister) are getting ready for bed. Yes, it's only 7:30, why do you ask?