In praise of my husband

With the girls hovering around various levels of illness the past two weeks, I have begun to increasingly feel like a rat in a cage.

A gigantic, crampy rat in a cage full of smaller, constantly chattering mice.

So Chris stepped up to the plate yesterday and released me out into the wild. "The wild" being Bed Bath and Beyond, and then the Towson mall with Vanessa.

Do you know what it feels like to step into a foul-smelling, cramped mall bathroom and get a surge of happiness because you realize that you don't need to finangle any little bottoms (with layers of toilet paper, let's hope those pants don't touch the floor, please don't fling your hair into the toilet when you pull them up!) into the stall with you? It's heaven.

So, I was MIA for a good four or five hours when I finally got a call from Chris, politely asking me to stop by the store to get Coke for Claire. Because she had spent the whole day throwing up. When I left the house, Claire hadn't even begun to sprout a fever (and yes, I checked - part of the daily routine lately has been a temp check for everyone upon waking.) Chris spent all day bent over the toilet holding Claire's hair out of her face, just so that I could get a little break.

Forget flowers and schmaltzy Hallmark cards; this, young ladies out there, is what true love is all about.