And more sick kids

Oliver seems to be suffering from some kind of mysterious and very annoying illness. A moderate to high fever, a barking cough that only emerges at night, and a general increase in his usual level of toddler angst. He'll be going to the pediatrician if we have another bad night, so fingers crossed that he manages to sleep (his fever broke, leaving him thoroughly saturated, and though he had to wear ducky pyjamas instead of fire trucks or dinosaurs, he went back to sleep after being changed).

Tuesday he just seemed kind of feverish, so I kept him home from preschool. Wednesday, he was actually whiney and ill-seeming, as well as feverish, so again he stayed home. And I learned just how hard it is to have two kids demanding your physical attention at the same time. Elliot's been chewing on everything he can get his pudgy little hands on and generally been clingy, but we lucked on and he slept a bit later than usual. So Oliver and I watch PBS shows while he dances around the living room, then runs back saying "want mommy to sit with me?" All well and good until Elliot wakes up, in his usual good humor, thankfully, but with that look on his face that meant he'd be spending the morning trying to chew his way across the living room and wouldn't be content to be put down for long. All is well for like a half hour, until Oliver begins demanding "Want me to hold you?" and Elliot starts demanding the same. And obviously, holding both of them is not a reasonable solution for Oliver, since Elliot keeps trying to grab handfuls of his hair and put them in his mouth, and in his overly-angsty state, Oliver just couldn't deal with the rapturous smiles Elliot kept throwing his way. So I bowed to begging and put on yet another movie ("A penguin movie! Want to watch a penguin movie? Awwww, it's a baby penguin! He's so cute!"), and as I'm standing in the kitchen, trying to decide if I can manage to clean the counters in the 5 minutes of quiet that the new movie has bought me, I smelled the unmistakable smell of cat poop and knew my day had gone from challenging to certifiably crappy, pardon the pun.

Back into the exersaucer Elliot went as I rounded on Inky, the assumed culprit. And I was right. I took Inky into the kitchen, mostly so I could swear at him without having to worry about Oliver repeating me at preschool, and realized that mere paper towels were not going to do the job. Inky needed a bath. I cursed Haakan under my breath (and over my breath, once I got upstairs), ignored the demands of my children (Oliver's "Want some MIIIIIIILK!" and Elliot's general displeasure at both me having walked out of his line of sight and running out of things to chew on), and locked myself and Inky in the bathroom. And as I'm leaning over the tub, washing poop off my cat's ass with baby shampoo, I had one of those "what has happened to my life" kind of moments. But I managed to get Inky clean, though it was a struggle and I had to change clothes by the time we were done, and rejoing my no longer fussing children. Oliver had handed Elliot a bunch of new toys (all of which were, luckily, actually Elliot's toys) and greeted me with a happy "We're wathing a penguin movie!"