notes from the sickroom

I'b so tired ub being sick.

This is what stinks about teaching--I'm exposed to way more viral enemies via my students, half of whom have missed class lately due to...you guessed it...illness (which they tell me as they hand me their germ-besmeared homework).

In any case, today I noticed one nice thing about being sick: the smallest accomplishment takes on mammoth proportions, because when you're sick (or at least when I'm sick) I think that I should spend the day in bed with a box of tissues and a gallon of orange juice, and since I can't do that since I have two small people calling "mamamamamamama I need you" (and shining a flashlight in my eyes to see "how sick you are, just look here okay and you feel better so probably you can get out of bed now and get me some breakfast so hurry please because i am very hungry are you getting up now i am very hungry get up now now now i want some cereal and oranges and yogurt") and a husband who is gone all day and leaves again before bedtime three days out of four, I have to get up and take care of everyone. Therefore, doing something like feeding the girls breakfast and changing them out of their pajamas is really impressive.

And let me tell you, as I mopped up the kitchen floor after breakfast this morning, on my hands and knees no less, I felt like Hercules cleaning the Augean stables (except I didn't divert any rivers, which probably would have made it go a lot faster). And also, my floor wasn't covered in manure. Just strawberry jam.