Aaaaaaaah! *stretches and yawns* I feel like I just climbed out of the primordial ooze to take evolution's first breath of oxygen and am well on my way to becoming mankind one day... just not quite yet. Maybe in a few hundred million years.

So here's a lesson learned: just because you got your kids a flu shot doesn't mean you won't get the flu. I can't remember the last time I took an entire week off work and didn't come back with a new baby. Note to self: Get a damn flu shot next time!

Here's another lesson learned: If you are an out of town colleague come to DC and asked to take the office out to lunch and you sit next to the lady with the baby during said lunch, then later on that weekend you come down with the flu, do not email the office which includes the lady with the baby to say you hope you didn't make anyone sick because the lady AND the baby will both have the flu by the time they read your email and it will be too late and they will just resent you and no good can come of that.

It's not really so much for me... between the combination of no sleep and no flu shot, I deserved what I got. But the poor Caterpillar is about as miserable as she could be and that's hard to take.

It's an interesting phenomenon, when your child gets sick. As miserable as I felt toward the beginning of the week, as much as I wished for death as a preferable alternative to the fever, chills, runny nose, weepy eyes, dry heaving, etc. that I had Sunday through Wednesday, on Thursday, when I felt a tiny bit better for the first time, but my baby came down with the same fever, chills, runny nose, weepy eyes, etc. I would have gladly, GLADLY!, taken back every symptom to avoid her suffering them. Poor thing.

The KingofHearts has a gene that causes the slightest little virus to elicit a fever of over 103. We call it the Scare the Crap Out of Your Mother Gene. Because that's what it does. Apparently it scares the crap out of medical professionals too. When I took The Caterpillar in to the pediatrician on Friday, the nurse asked me what was wrong. I said, "She has a high fever and I just want her lungs listened to before the weekend to make sure there's no pneumonia. I'm sure it's just the flu because we've all had it this week." The waiting room was filled, FILLED, with sniffly kids and I think I detected a slight eye roll from the nurse when I uttered the words "high fever". She had me take off the baby's diaper and took her temperature with about the most blase attitude I could imagine. 103.4. She looked down at the thermometer, did a double take and gasped, "Oh! She has fever." Then ran to get baby Tylenol. Uh huh... you questioned me, didn't you biotch? Howyalikemenow?

The doctor, likewise, had to test and confirmed my diagnoses of flu. I graduated from mini-medical school, thankyouverymuch.

Another lesson learned, if you are a mom, you can be sick for a week and get no sleep and still be responsible for 98% of the childcare in the home. If you are a man, and you've been sick half as long and to half the degree of severity, you are being put upon if you have to hold the baby for more than twenty minutes and you should be allowed to stay in bed until 8:00 am especially on the weekends. That is because you have MAN FLU:



Another lesson learned: if you want to clean out your basement, offer up stuff on Freecycle. You don't even have to take all your crap out to the curb. Because people loves they free stuff!

I'm going to try and come up with something more coherent to write soon. Just wanted to remind everyone I was still alive. But just barely.