Sick? What sick?

I love being a full time mom, but the one problem is that I do not get a sick day.  For the past two weeks, I have had various aches and pains and finally got to see a doctor (had to get my neighbor to come over during the kids' naptime so I could sneak out).  Oddly for Massachusetts these days, I met with my actual doctor, who made a lovely act of remembering me (I'm sure she checked my chart before I entered, but kudos to her for adding a personal touch!). It turns out that it is a painful condition, but not contagious and easily treatable with a ton of Advil. For a couple of weeks. Ugh.

So now that we've figured out my problem, we turn to the Duchess and Honey, who had a totally different bug that turned them into goop machines.  They are both on the mend, but my, it wasn't exactly a fun week at the Rules household!

Although I may sound as if I am complaining about the little ones being sick, I was actually happy in a way because it meant that the Duchess was back to taking a nice long nap. Never a great sleeper to begin with, the Duchess could always be relied upon for a couple of hours of shut-eye daily. We are clearly approaching the time when she will give up her midday nap, and with it, my only chance to watch Project Runway and all the CSIs and NCISs.  I don't know when the Duchess actually rests, because for the past two months, literally every night around 2:30am, she has woken me up and requested to get into bed with me.

"Everyone sleeps in her own bed," I say every time, groggily congratulating myself on my correct grammar.

"I don't want to sleep in my bed!" she wails, waking me up completely.

"If you wake up Honey, I'll..." I start off angrily, but trail off, as I can't think of a good empty threat for a three year old. 

And we go into her room and sing a song and put the blanket on, and get a fish kiss and a penguin kiss and so on and so on...and then I stumble back to my own bed, where I lie awake for an hour. This night reading is how I have managed to finish the first four tomes in the Song of Fire and Ice series.  Not that I could follow the story very well.

Seems like both girls will only sleep when they are tired out, as they were Saturday afternoon when The Grump and I sneaked out to catch Moneyball and eat dinner in a restaurant that does not provide plastic cups with straws.  Of course I was still sick, but that did not stop me from drinking my share of wine. I figured, I'll have a crummy night sleep anyway.

We didn't use our regular sitter, or even our backup sitter, but rather the backup to the backup sitter, who is 14 years old.  I realize that in our community of moms, it is considered crazy to hire someone who does not have a college degree in early childhood education and CPR training, but then again, she doesn't leave our apartment and only charges $10/hour in cash.  She is perfectly capable of calling the fire department if necessary, and that is all we really need.

The sitter eventually texted me that the Duchess was bawling her head off and took a long time to settle down.  This did not disturb me as much as the next text, which stated that our sitter couldn't find the hot dogs in the fridge.  (I can't imagine how that happened - it's not like they were in disguise or something). In the end, she just gave the girls baked beans for dinner. (The Grump and I shrugged over our elegant Kobe meatballs and Jonah crab cake and said, at least they are eating something).

We came home to a quiet house. The girls had cried themselves to sleep. I headed for my bottle of Advil and dosed myself up, prepping for another long night ahead, which turned out to be about the same as every other night.  But at least we had a date - and I got to have awesome leftover lobster ravioli for lunch on Sunday.