Aaaaand.... she's OUT!

Cold, that is. By nine o'clock last night.

I only wish it was a pleasant evening that included a cooling bath, a foot rub, a few chapters in Heart of Darkness, and some maybe a little teacher in-service. But, no.

It was a migraine. So, my early evening included grilling kabobs outside, having a whomper of a time trying to narrow my vision enough to actually grasp the kabobs with the tongs. (The dog was hoping against hope that I'd fail.) An evening of moving very s-l-o-w-l-y in the hope that nobody would spot me and rip my brains apart by actually speaking to me. Especially not the small one with his nasally little, "Maaa! MaaAAA!" (Where did he get that accent? Ugh.)

I nearly exploded as I pureed the tomatillo soup. Rather than deal with the hubbub of having the boys set the table, I set it myself in *relative* quiet, called everyone to come eat, then grabbed the baby and headed for the cool darkness of our room to nurse and pray for death. Death did not come (retrospectively, I'm glad for that), but I did, at one point, leave a confused and screaming infant when I bolted from the bed and dashed to the bathroom to sacrifice to the gods for a while. I would rather puke from illness than from pain, any day. That is truly miserable.

Zorak is appreciated regularly around here, but last night the man earned his service stripes. He rescued the abandoned infant, coordinated the eating-o-the-supper, navigated the bedtime routine, and kept the general noise level to a dull roar while I laid in bed, doing my best impression of a demonic possession. It's nice to know somebody is reassurring the children that Mommy will be fine, when Mommy just can't muster that much strength. He even put Miss Emily down for the evening. God bless him.

This morning, life is beautiful. Much of that has to do with the fact that it's back in focus, less jarring, and more navigable, I'm sure. If we had plans to go anywhere, they've been scrapped - Zorak noticed on his way to work this morning that I'd left the door wide open on the Suburban yesterday afternoon when we got home. (In my defense, the headache had started on the drive home, three of four children were asleep as we pulled in, and there were the groceries to unload - I was a little distracted. *sheepish grin*) So I think we'll hang out, read books, maybe mow a little more grass (that lawn is the landscape equivalent of an all-day sucker!) and play ball. Sort of an impromptu day, but not so bad. If it doesn't get too hot, we'll try doing lessons on the picnic table out back.

And I need another cup of coffee!

Kiss those babies!
~Dy