I added the "Mc" in honor of the fact that Alastair is currently in Scotland (which is a key element of this story). McMurphy's law, in our case, goes a little something like this:
If your husband leaves for the UK for a week on Monday night, leaving you alone with your twin one-year-old daughters, then on Tuesday morning, you will wake up feeling nauseated and shaky. While changing the diaper of one of your daughters, you will have to stop mid-change, leaving onesie and PJs unfastened, plop daughter onto the floor and run into the bathroom to puke.
You will then fumble your way through dressing your babies and yourself and proceed to go to work even though you feel like absolute shite, because, seeing as McMurphy's law is in effect, you will also be in the midst of the PROJECT FROM HELL, on a tight deadline, and it's not the kind of thing you can easily pass off to someone else.
You'll soldier through a few hours of work, until people start giving you funny/scared looks as you shuffle greenly through the corridors with a shawl wrapped around you, and you realize you really need to go home and get in bed. (But you also will bring your work home with you, because you've still got to get in a few more hours.) When you wake up from your nap, it will be to the sound of one of your daughters (McClio), downstairs with Jean, crying inconsolably. When you go downstairs and pick her up, she will promptly puke all over you. And continue to puke approximately every half hour for the next three hours. (In between puking and cleaning up after it, you will be trying to get work done, of course.)
You get the gist of it. Yes, yesterday things were looking grim in the Baby Squared household. I was bracing myself for a terrrible night -- I thought Clio would continue throwing up, and that it was only a matter of time before Elsa joined in. And, of course, I still felt like crap, and had a raging headache owing to the fact that I'd barely eaten or drunk anything all day. I made a panicked, tearful call to mom and dad (not thinking they could actually do anything, just looking for parental love) and called on a friend, who delivered Pedialyte and a much-needed hug.
Then McMurphy showed me a little mercy. Clio slept soundly through the night, and today she was feeling much better -- almost her normal self. The bug has migrated to her lower GI tract, where it is much less unpleasant for her, apparently. Elsa is, so far, still healthy. (Still waiting for the other McShoe to drop there...) I'm feeling better, AND we brought in a freelancer to help me with the big bad project. So life seems much less overwhelming.
I actually considered blogging last night in the midst of my misery, because I knew you guys would come through with sympathy and cheerleading and your own tales of sick baby woe to make me feel better. Turns out, even just knowing that was a great comfort. So I decided to turn off the computer and get some much-needed rest instead. (McThank you!)
