DAY ONE
7 AM: Six-year-old daughter arrives in kitchen, dressed for school. Weeps during brushing of hair, and doesn't want breakfast. Breaks down at the thought of being zipped into winter parka. Kiss on forehead detects warmth. Thermometer reads 99.6. Off with parka, mittens, hat. Daughter races upstairs to put pajamas back on, settles down on den couch with blankets and remote control.
8-9 AM: I cancel meetings, appointments, after-school plans.
10 AM - 12 PM: Daughter, given little bell to ring whenever she needs something, rings bell every five minutes, thrilled at the sight of mother jogging back and forth bearing orange juice, tissues, lunch on a tray, etc.
12:05 PM: Bell removed from daughter's clenched fingers and hidden on high shelf in kitchen.
1 - 4 PM: Daughter naps.
5 PM: Son arrives home. Sister chases him around the house. Just as I'm beginning to wonder if she's really sick, her cheeks turn bright red and the thermometer reads 102.
8 PM: Husband and I have initial conversation about how likely it is that we'll carry through with tomorrow's trip to visit Grandma in New York and attend bar mitzvah in New Jersey.
DAY TWO
7 AM - 2 PM: Analyze, on an hourly basis, the wisdom of traveling with sick child. Talk to Grandma in New York approximately eleven times.
11 AM: Take daughter to pediatrician. Daughter's temperature is normal (of course). Diagnosis: virus.
2 PM: Husband and I decide it is ridiculous to take virally-challenged daughter to New York. Decide that husband and son will go alone.
2:05 PM: Daughter's temperature, as though waiting for us to make the right decision, leaps to 101.
2:10 PM: Realize son has ripped out knee of good pants playing football at recess. Run to mall with sick child to buy new pants for brother to wear to bar mitzvah.
5 PM: Husband and son leave for New York.
5:30 - 7 PM: Watch Mary Kate and Ashley video with daughter, feed her macaroni and cheese and take her temperature every ten minutes, still seeking justification for decision to stay home. Put her to bed early. In my bed.
DAY THREE
3:30 AM: Daughter wakes up. Wants to know if she can have a dog, and if not, why not.
3:35 AM: Daughter goes back to sleep.
6:05 AM: I go back to sleep.
6:15 AM: Daughter up for the day. She's not the only one.
6:15 AM - 8 PM: Temperature outside is 2 degrees. Temperature inside daughter is 101. Spend day cleaning out closets together, reading, making cookies and watching the Weather Channel. We both nap. Eat more macaroni and cheese and watch another Mary Kate and Ashley video. After daughter goes to sleep for the night, I turn on computer. Instead of working, I send desperate email message to friend. Think wistfully of dancing at bar mitzvah.
DAY FOUR
- Temperature outside has surged to 35. Daughter's has dropped to 100.
- We celebrate by picking up Chinese food and ransacking the Mary Kate and Ashley section at the video store.
- Husband and son arrive home from New York.
DAY FIVE
- Martin Luther King Day. No school. What else is new?
- So cold outside that face freezes when I open door to get the newspaper.
- Son, working on major project for school, only appears for meals.
- Daughter's temperature is down to 99.6.
- I spend day on couch with daughter, closely following the doings of Franklin and Little Bear on Nick Jr.
- Is this what they mean by the Stockholm Syndrome?
DAY SIX
- Daughter's temperature still 100.
- Decide that "Enough is Enough."
- Call pediatrician, run daughter in for another check. Whopping ear infections brewing in both ears. Come home with awful-tasting medicine. Break ironclad rule about not bribing children to take medicine and give daughter a handful of Peanut M and M's as medicine chaser.
- Tell daughter the party's over.
- Haul out the schoolwork that has been piling up on the kitchen counter and tell her to get to work.
- Write a couple of hundred words myself.
- Exhausted, we treat ourselves to a repeat showing of "It Takes Two," starring -- you guessed it - Mary Kate and Ashley.
- Son arrives home from school, coughing a little. Stays up late doing homework and finishing major project.
- Husband and I agree that daughter will go back to school tomorrow.
1:03 AM: Son arrives at my bedside, complaining of aching legs and difficulty sleeping. Take his temperature: 100. Give him Tylenol and send him back to bed.
6:00 AM: Daughter wakes up. Dresses, eats breakfast, swallows awful-tasting medicine with gusto. Loads up backpack and stands at door, waiting to leave.
8:29 AM: Son drags himself out of bed and slumps at kitchen table, too stuffed up to lift his head.
8:35 AM: Settle him down on den couch with blankets and remote control. He turns on television and immediately flips to ESPN.
8:36 AM: Ask him how he feels about Mary Kate and Ashley.
