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I don’t care if zipping down the hill at Mach Five is a barrel of giggles, if I have to do it in subzero weather, it just ain’t worth it to me.

If I have to cover my entire face up to prevent parts and pieces of it from freezing and falling off, it ain’t worth it to me.

If it takes me 10 minutes to disrobe enough to be able to tinkle, and 15 minutes to re-robe, it ain’t worth it to me.

Then again, if the munchkins are happy…..

It’s worth it.

My Critter, my baby boy, my sweet little guy….turned 10 today.

I sobbed.

I broke martini glasses in a fit of rage.

I begged Father Time to stop.

I laughed hysterically that my life has sped so out of control.

I counted at least 20 more grey hairs, some of which were even on my head.

I gazed listlessly at photos taken years ago, and wondered things like:

….where did my little boy go?…

…if he misses me holding him on my lap as much as I miss holding him….

….will he retain his silliness over the next decade, or will life knock it out of him?…

….what the heck was I thinking by wearing pony tails?

These are the questions that will keep me up tonight.

I hope the rest of you fare better.

Last February I showed you our beloved candy jar in ~ Tokens of Affection ~.

We’ve added a little something new on the candy spectrum to the room this year.  A nod, so to speak, to our mortality.  A bow to our recent illnesses.

Behold, the new candy bowl, lovingly known as “Tokens of Infection“, or  “Polka-Dotted Bowl O’ Health.”

Basically, it’s a bowl full of multi-citrus-flavored Vitamin-C candy drops.  They’re pretty tasty, so before you snicker, try one!  Try a couple!  Try several, Daggum it!  Because they’re not merely candy! No. No! NO!  They are VITAMINS, after all!

Sorry for all the yelling and exclamation points.  I’m excitable.

Here’s the thing:   If you are going to eat a whole slew of them at once, don’t, for goodness sake, eat the sugar-free ones.

Because, apparently, those will give you… er… gastrointestinal distress of the acutest kind.

And, if you were to do that, we’d have to re-name the Bowl O’ Health to something entirely different, and I just don’t have the energy.

I don’t want to sugar up my family any more than the next soccer-mom, but I also don’t want a bowl full of colon stimulators.  So, in my great maternal wisdom, I mixed the two kinds together in the bowl.  That way sometimes you’ll get a sugar-free Vitamin-C drop, and sometimes you’ll get the real sugary deal.

It’s gastrointestinal Russian Roulette.  And, like Mary Poppins, I like to make everything in life a little more fun.

Candy anyone?

My Captain is, at the writing of this, the Last Man Standing in our house.   The rest of us are like the undead here.  Zombies.  Nasty smelling Zombies.

Critter and Varmint are down with a viral gastrointestinal bug from hell, and I’m out with the good ol’ fashioned flu.  Not just any flu.

THE Flu.

At any given moment in this house, someone is either coughing or vomiting or pooping or whining or crying.  And the washer and dryer have been in constant use.

It ain’t been for the faint of heart.

It started Sunday at 6:30am, and has steadily gotten worse. At first I was the official Muck Collector, but I got taken out last night.  My Captain, home since then, would usually be on shift at Fire Station 31 tomorrow, but he took one look into my pleading, pathetic, worshipful eyes, and decided against it.  How could he leave me to care for a sick Varmint and Critter, when I could hardly even care for my own feverish self?  He could not, in all good conscience.  He’s a rescuer, after all.

Oh he may have WANTED to go to work.  I have no doubt he is conflicted.  After all, he’s got stuff piling up at the Station when he isn’t there.    In the end, not only his duty to his family, but also his strong sense of self-preservation made him stay…..

…..’cause I would have killed him if he left.

With a spoon.

A dull spoon.

A dirty, dull, spoon.

I mean that all in metaphor, of course.  I didn’t actually visualize it.  Well, not EXACTLY.  Not the dull part anyways.

So tonight My Captain had to fend for his own dinner, sadly.  He thought a grilled cheese sandwich sounded good.  But so did a hot dog.  He couldn’t decide; and as necessity is the mother of invention, he created a new entrée for this house.

Behold the new Grilled Dog Cheese Sandwich.

We should have thought to spread the halves apart so you could see the gooey melty cheesy center, but even without it, you can just imagine the yumminess, can’t you?   All crunchy and hot on the outside, and all cheesy on the inside.

It’s a lot like me if you think about it.

Wait, that sounds wrong.  Forget I said that.  Move on.

So he’s added this awesome sammy to his arsenal for this particular sick family zombie apocalypse.  He’s ready for us, the half-un-dead, waving his grilled dog cheese yumminess in front of our nausea-filled faces.  Like Tallahasse in Zombieland.

But without the Banjo.

It’s genius, really.

We’ve been fighting illness in our house.  To call it Gastroenteritis is a kind understatement.  It would be more accurate to call it “Effluence 2013: Where anything that CAN shoot out of a body orifice at high velocity, will.”

And the things that usually come jetting out, look, smell, and feel totally grody, Man.

The only way I, as designated muck collector, can avoid puking during the sanitizing process is to:  1) think only happy thoughts and 2) breathe through my mouth, instead of my nose.

Because if I get even one whiff of those vapors…it’s over.

We’re not talking dry heaves.  We’re talking the whole gamut of retching and its various forms.

….which would then start off a chain reaction around the house.

…..which would then create more for me, the muck collector, to collect, remove, and sanitize.

So you see how Mouth-Breathing is an absolute necessity.

It’s an art, really.  One I’ve had to perfect since I birthed my life-force sucking little critters.

Just another one of those things that makes me useful around the house…….