If there’s something sadder than having your little three-year old pad into your bedroom at four AM covered in barf, I do not want to know what it is. Except maybe stripping her out of her feeties, starting to rinse them in the tub, and looking over to see her shivering on the tile floor: No! Not the pajamas first! The girl first! Wash the girl, bleary parent!

It was like rounding Cape Horn in a sailing romance: periods of relative quiet, followed by brisk all-hands calls to swarm on deck and replace every inch of rigging. Literally, if ships were rigged with flannel chafing blankets and plastic-backed polyester mattress liners.

So I went off to the grocery store in the morning, bought some more small-child fluid-replacement drink (she couldn’t keep diluted apple juice down) and THANK HEAVENS for the “Invisible Clock” which I bought to keep me from falling irrevocably asleep on her floor back when she wasn’t sleeping through the night — I set it to buzz at five-minute intervals, and spent the whole morning reading books to her, then cajoling her into taking a teaspoon of funky-tasting fluid every five minutes. “Lilly showed the class the many special qualities and unique features of her purple plastic purse…” *buzz* *slurp*

There’s a number of places where Lydia could have caught a stomach bug in the past week; the most likely being the nursing-care center where Kate’s dad is staying — everyone on the hall had had a bug, and he was the last to get it. I can’t even imagine what it’s like to be recovering from chemo and have a #@k!n& stomach bug at the same time. Actually, talking to Bob on the phone yesterday, he says that it wasn’t that bad — he’s on so much anti-nausea medication, maybe, that it wasn’t terrible. I hope.

Anyhow, I guess it goes to show you that no matter how diligent you are with the Purelle, toddlers will get what they will get. And Lydia spent the day yesterday not complaining about herself, but saying “I’m worried about Boppy” (her name for Bob.) “I want to get him out of the hos-ti-pal.” Which is excruciatingly Dickensian of her.

She seemed better by nine PM last nght; she’s hydrated, and was back to her usual demanding “Daddy, put the covers back on me!” by two AM. So, as of this writing, I’m back on the train, since work has piled up in NYC. I’m hoping to God that both Kate and I won’t come down with it — especially Kate, at least not today — and I’ll be maintaining a ten-foot burn zone around me all day at the office (note to any office readers: I feel fine. I think it’s one of those “old people, sick people, and infants” things. Plus, I’m going to freaking BATHE in disinfectant.)

I’m also hoping that this sweater I’m wearing doesn’t have any toddler barf on it. Right now, I’m a little unsure…