I'm Sorry, Did You Say Hoof and Mouth?

Well, hello there.

It's been...a week. I'll spare you the pustulous details (yes, I think I may have made up that word, but I think you'll agree it's fitting) and head straight to the lowlights.

So last week, I got a giant--GIANT--freelance editing project from a brand-new client. By giant I mean the task was basically to edit about 57,000 words, complete with 250 totally wrongly-formatted footnotes, inside about a week. No problem, right? Once my official Bu hours are done on Thursday afternoon, I have alllll weekend to work on it -- mornings, evenings, naps, and daytime when JVL takes the kiddos.  It'll be tight, but reasonably doable. Right?

So Thursday night, out of nowhere, Cordelia wakes up with a 103.5 fever. Which shoots up to 105.2, where it stays for the next two days. We took her straight to the pediatrician Friday morning, who gave us the lovely news that it looked like she had...wait for it...

...hand and foot and mouth disease.

Yeah. Gross, isn't it? Really, really gross. Also, terrible on a child. High fever, chills, aches and shakes and in Cordelia's case, severe vomiting (we're talking puking up water), a complete inability to eat, some delirium, and a failure to remember how to talk like a normal person....only whines emerged. Exclusively. I mean that in the most literal sense of the word. Thank goodness it was also heartrending, so that I could balance out my "I cannot take this anymore! This is so irritating!" thoughts with more compassionate ones: "It breaks my heart to see her like this! I would do anything to make her more comfortable...if only she would stop whining!"

We were hanging in, though.  She turned a corner Sunday morning and started to recover pretty fast. And I (stupidly) even quietly thanked God that she for having the foresight for once to not get sick on a Monday, just before my official work week starts. (I will never do this again--it turns out it has the exact same effect as saying, "Oh, the baby is finally snoozing so soundly -- what a great sleeper!"...two minutes later, you start to hear crying on the monitor.) Monday afternoon, Cody started to slump. Then he nosedived. By dinnertime, he was unable to eat, his tongue and throat and butt were covered with disgusting little sores, and he had a 105 fever. Awesome. On Tuesday, I nosedived. I'm not really sure if my fever, closed throat, and aches were the same thing, or just a product of being so run-down, but who cares, really.

Here are my sad little sacks, curled up in their rocket ships (that's what they call their Costco grocery boxes).

I'm happy to report that a week later, we have all picked our sorry selves up and are beginning to get our pep back.

And for the record, I will say: JVL, you are my eternal hero. There is no way I could get through anything--particularly a week like this--without the steadiest, most loving, most capable, most flexible, most unflappable (at least in these matters) partner in the world. The only reason Cody, Cordelia, and I are not lying today in a heap on the bathroom floor, wallowing in our own pustule-encrusted crapulence, with me reduced to catatonia from Cordelia's whining, is because of Jonathan. This may sound like an exaggeration, but I'm pretty sure it's not. Father/Husband/Nurse of the Year, hands down.