he feels "yucky"

Alas, we're in the throes of our first honest-to-goodness sickness. Two weeks ago, we walked into preschool to see a little girl look up from the craft table and say (snotto-voce), "I don't feel so good." Seconds later, as she curled in a rocking chair in the fetal position, YoYo proudly assumed her craft-table post to make his mommy the finest valentine in the land. All I could think was, "Here it comes."

Sure enough, within 24 hours, it came. For both of us. I felt B-L-A-H. Meanwhile, captain snotty-nose seemed none the worse for wear-no fever, just a cold, right? I waited a few days and gave him kiddy mucinex for a week. I WAS NOT going to overreact. I was NOT taking him to the Doc to hear, "Yeah, not much we can do. Make sure he drinks a lot."

Until last night. It's been two weeks. He was sounding better, and this morning at 5-God-is-not-even-awake-yet-a-blessed-m, he woke up coughing. And the cough had that really nasty sound only little kids can get. And he was soooooo hot. 102, in fact. We headed to the Doc as soon as his office opened. PS, I won the lottery-it was Doc's first day in a new office-let's not talk about the havoc at the front desk, or how much they wanted to kill me for asking them to "work us in."

He is so pitiful. His antibiotic dosage is so large, it alarmed the pharmacist, who double-checked with Doc before she'd even let us take it home. We had to beg/bribe/threaten him to drink anything, and he barely ate. He slept a lot. While the nurse oohed and ahhed over his good behavior after an hour's wait, I thought, "Yeah, he must feel BAD to be this compliant." When he turned down gyoza (dumplings) AND McDonald's for lunch, I considered taking him back and demanding he be admitted to the hospital.

Instead, while he sleeps, I will pay tribute to our incredible little man. With photos.

These are from an installation he did in the living room the other week. He asked for little paper, scrawled a design on each page, laid the pages out in a serpentine line, then added a car to each page. It was so methodical. I don't know if you can tell from the detail, but he placed each car in an alternate direction. It took time, and I watched the whole thing. Christian Boltanski, we are coming soon.

Shane's cousin Eli (our other "Baby Boy") has been back and forth to our house from Cincinnati several times in the last few months as he makes college plans and prepares to move down here. YoYo loves him. LOVES him. Which delights me-I don't know if you can see E's gauges, but when YoYo first met him, those ear-bobs were accompanied by a nose ring and two lip piercings, and a tattoo gallery. Was our little guy afraid? Nope. In fact, he was inspired...

...and decided he should take up nudie-bear bongo drumming. I don't think I can post that one...yet.

Feel better, Little Bear!