Good morning!

I spent yesterday busting my buns to get the house somewhat clean for a family member who is arriving this weekend and staying a couple of days.

This morning, at 8 o'clock, the house is not only covered in pieces of ripped-up and cut-up paper, but I've also had to wash a couch cover that was covered in excretement.

Let me tell you how I got from there to here.

Upon awakening, I was lulled into a thought that today might be great. My daughter had managed to sleep through the night in her own bed, even waking in the night to use the bathroom, then returning to her own bed - something she has never done before (she would normally come into our room post pee-pee.)

It went pretty much downhill two seconds later.

My son, who spent the whole night in our room (my fault - I fell asleep with him next to me watching the NJ Nets of all things) woke up sniffing with a horrific runny nose. There are several degrees of sickness in two-year-olds:

1) a little out-of-sorts. Not much different than usual.

2) whining, moaning, wailing, hungry but not wanting to eat anything. Not enough vocabulary to express where it hurts, without the experience to know what is best to feel better, this goes on for hours/all day.

3) feverish and lethargic. Sleeping a lot.

1 and 3 are OK. 2 really sucks. This was a 2.

The only thing he wanted to eat/drink was apple juice. All those vitamins can only help, so I loaded him up. He perked up considerably. This is good.

A hour or so after starting his apple juice regimen I am reminded of one of the main reasons my son differs from my daughter. His reaction to foodstuffs.

My boy reacts to things he ingests in the most spectacular fashion. One marshmallow, and he is driven insane. I had given him three cups of undiluted apple juice to ward off his germs.

So, an hour after his first mouthful of apple juice, it all comes out of his bottom into his diaper. The diaper then leaks all over the couch as I yell at my daughter to get me some newspaper. It looks like oxtail soup, swishing in the supposed absorbent core layer that is full to capacity. It swishes over the edges as he kicks, fuelled by the sugar rush within. My fingers are covered, he is covered pretty much up to his waist. The puddle on the couch is growing.

Which is how, at 8am, I am washing the floor, the couch cover, my son and scrubbing my own fingernails in a house that looks like it hasn't been tidied in a week.