Fevered mind, raving, not terribly coherent and not caring too much.

The girls are both sick. Not terribly ill, just enough that they're feeling yucky and congested and terribly, terribly whiny.

Whining is hard to deal with under the best of circumstances, but especially so right now as I've caught the same bug they have. I do hate being sick and yet being busy taking care of my sick family. The little girl inside me wants my mom to come take care of me! It is useful, on the other hand, to have their bug, because it lets me know what they're going through. After all, it's not like they're very capable of letting me know what's wrong.

Of the two of them, the preschooler is best able to communicate how she feels. I just have to decode what she's saying.

"Maaaaw-meeee," she said, when she woke me up sometime after 5 a.m. this morning, "My nose doesn't work." I gave her a tissue and talked her through the process of using it.

"It tickles in my mouth," she whined later, heaving a couple of sobs to let me know how upsetting this all was. That one took a little longer to figure out. I coaxed her to eat a dry piece of toast to clear her throat.

The husband is off today, but not being very helpful. He told the preschooler that she had a frog in her throat, which created some consternation until he explained that it wasn't a real frog, just an expression. The explanation didn't really work. She just told me, "I have a frog in my mouth."

I've been letting both girls watch lots of TV, not something we normally do. It's been rainy and gloomy and chilly, though, on top of these colds, which has made everyone feel even worse, I think. Under the circumstances heavy TV viewing has been the only way to maintain my sanity.

The toddler has gotten very diligent about getting her diaper changed. I swear I'm changing her diaper more now than I did when she was a newborn. The minute anything happens she runs over to me, patting her bottom and repeating, "'tinky! 'tinky!" until I remove the offensive object and give her a nice clean diaper. She's so determined to keep clean that I've started musing about the wisdom of starting her on toilet training.

I need to go shopping. The girls only want to eat apples, bananas and such, and we're out. I am down to one plum, which has led to further great whining.

The husband has a doctor appointment. I think when he comes back I'm going to blackmail him into taking care of the girls while I take a nap.