Sickly

I woke up this morning at 5ish, around the time Ben got up early to head out to Cedar Point. Pretty much as soon as I woke up, I knew I wouldn't be going to work today. I'd spent most of the night up coughing and my throat, chest and head ached something awful. So, by the time I had to get up for real (read: kids were wreaking havoc and I couldn't responsibly ignore them anymore), I rolled out of bed and stumbled my way downstairs to call into work. I had a scheduled meeting with the CFO this morning that I'd spent a good part of yesterday preparing for, so I also called him to let him know we'd have to postpone.

Got myself as minimally ready as possible to drive the kids to my mom's. I felt (and looked) like death warmed over. I herd the three kids out the door, and as luck would have it (bad luck, that is), the dog slips outside at the last second. I've got Sophie in my arms, and my first instinct was to drop her and grab him before he crossed the street, but luckily my motherly side took over before I acted on that impulse. Instead, I shuffled the kids out to the truck and gently placed Sophie inside, told the boys to stay put while I wrangled the dog.

Now, I knew I had not strapped Sophie in the car seat. But, in past such occurrences, her favorite thing to do is clamber into the front seat and pretend to drive. So, off I go to fing the dog, who has made his way to the neighbor's house where I can only assume he claimed all manner of flowers and shrubbery as his own. A few minutes of chasing and pretending my only intention was to smother him with loving and possibly feed him a steak, and I finally had him.

I cross the street back to the house only to find Sophie's back end sticking out from underneath the Mountaineer. By the time I had Canada safely in the house, she had managed to crawl all the way under the truck and emerge from the other side. Presumably Travis had opened the door, she slithered her way out and decided to check the oil filter or something.

I suppose my day went uphill from there. Got some antibiotics from the doc, feeling somewhat better. My evening ended with all three children screeching in mock terror as I vacuumed. Travis doing so because he pretends the vacuum cleaner is a tornado coming to whisk him away; Noah because he believes it's an alien spaceship descending on the house to unleash some sort of bad guy; and Sophie because her two older brothers are doing it and thus she has deduced that it is in fact the socially acceptable - nay, expected - response in such a situation.

Now, I need to put the kids to bed, because Sophie is sitting on the kitchen table trying to peel a banana by herself, and Noah has found the squirt bottle used to deter the dog from inappropriate behavior, and I don't even want to wait to determine what he'll decide to do with it.