Toddlers are less fun when they're sick.

The child is sick and has been crying crying crying nonstop for hours every day and as he screams my mind gets all dark and I feel like those evil little imps from the movie “Ghost” that go “bleah bleah” as they seep out of the shadows to drag the bad people into hell. (Yes, I just made a “Ghost” reference. I have not the mental energy to come up with something more clever. Someday I’ll make a Svankmajer reference, and won’t you be impressed then? Won’t you?) He’s in a constant state of crisis, always frantically needing something that is impossible to deliver, since apparently feverish toddlers believe that their teary protests will rend the fabric of reality, so that the very item they desire will come bounding toward them from some alternate universe. So, for instance, he wants a cracker BUT NOT THAT CRACKER! OH GOD I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU JUST OFFERED ME THE ONE CRACKER I DO NOT WANT, DAMN YOU, THE INJUSTICE, I WILL CLUTCH AT YOUR ANKLES AND WEEP WHILE POINTING AT THE SHELVES AT SOME OTHER BOX THAT ISN’T CRACKERS BUT SWEET CHRIST STOP TELLING ME IT ISN’T CRACKERS, JUST GIVE ME THE CRACKERS THAT SHOULD BE IN THERE, I DON’T CARE HOW IT’S DONE, I DON’T WANT TO HEAR YOUR LOGIC! I WILL SCREAM LOUDER, SO YOU GET THE POINT! AAAAAAIGH! NOW DO YOU SEE!

I am completely, utterly drained. I keep thinking he’s feeling better and then I’ll try to, say, put his shoes on and he’ll rip off the happy mask and shriek I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU’RE PUTTING SHOES ON ME AT A MOMENT LIKE THIS, THE PRECISE MOMENT WHEN THE LAST THING I NEEDED OR COULD HANDLE WAS SHOES! I DEMAND TO GO OUTSIDE TO THE GLASS- AND POOP-FESTOONED STREET BUT I WILL NEVER WEAR THOSE FOOT COVERINGS! YOU CAN’T MAKE ME LIVE BY YOUR RULES! HERE IS MORE SCREAMING FOR YOU!

He’s finally taking a nap although GOD HE DIDN’T WANT TO, WHY DID I PUT HIM IN THE CRIB OF DOOM. But, oh, he’ll wake up.

A plague is upon us.

There is sickness here in the Finslippy universe—the Child, who was slightly ill yesterday but bravely soldiering on despite his under-the-weatherness, awoke this morning with a fever of 104, blisters in his throat, speaking fluent Old Norse. The doctor quickly and easily diagnosed him with the dreaded Coxsackie virus. And so we returned to our dark hidey hole, to apply salves and poultices to Henry’s tender parts, and dream of healthier days.

I am addled with sleep deprivation. As evidence, I direct you now to thesaurus.com’s listing for “sickness.” Here are the synonyms:

"affection, affliction, ailment, backdoor trots, bug, complaint, condition, crud, disease, diseasedness, disorder, dose, flu, ill, ill health, illness, indisposition, infirmity, malady, nausea, queasiness, runs, syndrome, trots, unhealth, unhealthfulness, unwellness…"

The thing is, I was planning to observe, with great amusement, that “backdoor trots” is the fourth synonym they give, and why is it fourth, ha ha, but then I realized why. It’s alphabetical.

See, I was thinking it was in order of usage. Ahem. Cough, cough.

Anyone who has had more than three hours of sleep would probably have figured this out before they started to blog about it.

Still—“backdoor trots”! That’s funny!