Forced quality time

This past weekend was MLK weekend.  Will and I had been excited for a little extra time off.  Considered getting a sitter and going to a movie.  Or, you know, just leaving the house.

But then Cora and Evie and Will and I all came down with "hand, foot and mouth" disease.  Cora was patient zero and it spread to Evie on Friday, me on Saturday, and Will on Monday.  So not fun.  HF&M is a nasty little stomach bug that makes you feel nauseaus, dizzy, light headed, feverish, not interested in food, and often causes little tiny bumps and blisters on the lips and face or inside the mouth, and on the hands and feet.  Fortunately for Will and I adults typically don't get the bumps.  But both girls sure did.  The disease should actually be called HFM&T.  T being for tush.  That's where Cora and Evie's were the worst.  Both girls screamed about how uncomfortable they were.  And because of the bumps on their face and hands, once the other symptoms had gone away and we were no longer contagious, we still couldn't take the girls anywhere lest we terrify other people.

So inside we sat.  For four days.  And now that we're on the other side of it, I can say that minus the pain and nausea, the time spent together was actually pretty nice.  A great reminder of the fact that every once in a while it's good to not make any plans other than to just play together.  To read. To watch movies. To tickle. To chase. To laugh.  Yes, by the end we were all stir crazy.  Even Cora appeared to be climbing the walls.  But Will and I both agreed that on the whole it was a pretty amazing weekend with the girls.  We got to see how nice they can be when not being rushed from one place to the next. How fun it can be to break every rule and eat plain noodles with no veggies for dinner two nights in a row in front of the TV.  To stay in our jammies all day long.

On the day I was in particularly rough shape, the Patriots were playing.  Will was of course not too upset that we had to be stuck inside for that.  When I came down to check in, I found both girls on his lap cheering for Gronk or Tom.  Evie was actually watching the game.  Cora was too.  They were laughing and yelling and into it.  It was fantastic.

On the day Will was in bed, I attempted to take the girls out to a movie.  I figured no one could judge me too harshly for their faces in the dark.  Unfortunately the movie was sold out.  Every other parent trapped inside had the same idea.  As we had been on our way out the door, I told Evie if she didn't have her jacket on quickly that the movie might be sold out.  So, then of course when it happened (which was totally unexpected by the way... this movie had been out for months!), Evie started crying and apologizing and was so troubled by the whole thing I felt awful.  This isn't the first time I'd tried to take her to a movie only to find it was sold out. We had learned our lesson before. She really did hurry to get her jacket on quickly and the whole drive down was talking about how she hoped we could still get good seats and how excited she was.  On any other weekend I probably would've chocked it up to being a chance for her to learn that we don't always get what we want.  But, on this particular weekend I decided the poor kid needed a break.  She and Cora had really been incredibly good tempered despite our quarantine for the last four days.  So, I bought tickets for the next show, we dropped Cora at home with Will, and just she and I went back.  Halfway through the movie she sat on my lap and we cuddled.  I loved it.  I did not love the movie... but that's another story.