Sick Day

I'm breaking my own cardinal stay-at-home-mom rule today: always be showered and dressed by noon. I'm taking a sick day. So is Geo, for that matter-- he had a fever yesterday afternoon/evening, slept 13 hours last night (and slept in so late school would have been out of the question even if he hadn't just had a fever). He woke bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and was MAD that he wasn't going to school.

I had a rough night myself last night. While the four of us were in bed by 8:30pm (sad, isn't it?) I was the only one who didn't get to go to sleep until sometime around midnight. It went like this:

8:30pm, get into bed (children have BOTH been asleep since 7), finish listening to a podcast

9:00pm, start drifting off to sleep

9:30pm, Geo wakes up screaming from a fever nightmare. C sleeps through the screaming. I go soothe him back to sleep. This takes about an hour.

10:30pm, back in bed.

10:35pm, Mazen wakes up to nurse

10:55 pm, start drifting off to sleep

11:05pm, Geo wakes up crying. I went into his room intending to give him something for the fever, discover the fever is gone. Get him back to sleep.

11:45 back in bed, start drifting off.

12:30 am, Mazen wakes up to nurse

12:45am, start going back to sleep.

1:15am I am violently and suddenly ill, presumably from something I ate at the picnic on Sunday.

The night went on, more or less in that vein. Geo woke up and cried out a couple of times, but fell back asleep instantly. Mazzy gave me a couple of 3-hr stretches, and slept in until 7:15. C got a good night's sleep. I feel like crap.

And, Murphy's law being in full swing, this is the day I had mentally devoted to finish filing my tax information (before you tell me that the deadline was April 15th, know that expatriates have a 2-month automatic extension). It's also the day before my magazine deadline. I was counting on a quiet house this morning.

The good news: none of the illnesses seem to be serious, the tax forms have been filled out in pencil and will be inked in at some moment when children are not around, and the magazine will be fine. Focus on the positive, focus on the positive, focus on the positive. I will sleep again someday.