Welcome to the home of germs. If visiting, please don hazard wear or suffer the consequences. Hayley started on Monday with a vague reference to a minor sore throat which seemed better after she drank something. By Monday night she could hardly breathe without the aid of Triaminic fast dissolve squares.

Breanna randomly sneezed a few times until yesterday when Hayley informed me that her younger sister was “blowing bubbles out of her nose” and it all went downhill from there: One thirty minute nap, general crankiness, inability to sleep beyond the first hour that I put her down last night. I had just made a nice, hot cup of tea so when I realized at 9:15 that she wasn’t going to go back to sleep, I just brought her out and let her watch “The O.C.” with me while I drank it. She played fairly quietly (though I did have to put the baby gate up to block off the hallway to discourage her from wandering off to wake Hayley up, thanks anyway) for about two hours, snacking on rice cakes and hamming it up for George by playing with her gigantic Cookie Monster.

Then I spent the next several hours pacing with her crying body flung over my shoulder, suctioning snot out of her nose while she screamed hysterically, and then dozing sporadically while she sort of quasi-slept draped over my upright body in between her fits of crying miserably and tossing and turning. I probably slept about two hours last night. In spurts. Fun!

We won’t discuss the slight tickle I feel in the back of my own throat because I am currently busy ignoring it and if I don’t make myself a third cup of coffee to keep myself upright I may at least make a cup of tea to soothe the scratchiness.

George has already declared that he has no time to be sick. If that works, I’m trying that next time I hear the first hint of a sniffle from anyone in a five-foot radius.

*******

I watched “An Inconvenient Truth” yesterday. Good lord. First of all, Al Gore is amazing. I always said that if I was American I would have voted for him because I really like him. In the meantime, he’s certainly making good use of his non-Presidential free time and his well-known name by campaigning so hard to save the environment.

Secondly, I fully admit that it scared the holy living hell right out of me, far more than any horror movie ever did. The facts and the numbers and the graphs and the PHOTOS, Jesus Christ. How anyone can look at all that data and still shrug like Global Warming is just a myth is beyond me.

To be honest, as far as I’m concerned, if you can watch that movie and still insist that Global Warming is not real and all this ridiculously abnormal weather is part of a natural cycle of the planet and that we haven’t totally fucked ourselves and the earth up in a major way… Well if that’s what you believe, then you are a complete fucking idiot and part of the problem to begin with.

Later in the day I walked to the store and was actually relieved that it was cold for a change, even though there was still so little snow on the ground that I could have worn shoes and never mind that -13C still isn’t exactly COLD for January in this area. And never mind the fact that today it’s two above freezing and raining.

Terrifyingly good film.

*******

Hayley and Breanna are sitting in the ball tent right now. I keep hearing Hayley whisper, “Peepee. Poop. Pee and poop!” and each time, Breanna breaks into hysterical laughter.

Kids crack me up.

*******

I don’t know why I always get the urge to do things when I have no physical energy to do them. Right now I would really like to put the books on the shelf out here into the other room to create more space for storing the kids’ toys, I want to clean the bathtub, and I would really like to make my dad’s potato soup. I have no actual desire to DO these things, but I would really love to be able to have them done. Perhaps magically.

I think I can at least muster the strength to go boil the water in the kettle. Maybe.