My husband rarely has to go out of town, but he did last night.  So, I was doing the single parent thing, which I am not very good at.  To top things off, my car-- which had been giving me warning signals-- stopped blowing heat.  Considering the cold temps we have been having, this was not good news.  I ran out to pick up a pizza for dinner and discovered this while we were out.  I had visions of putting my two feverish, coughing children in the car to chauffeur my older daughter to her auditions and knew I had to make an alternate plan.  I called my father in  law, who had a quiet dinner with his wife planned.  (They have family members living with them who have two kids, and quiet time alone is a commodity right now.)  Imagine how bad I felt asking for their help!  Of course, that didn't stop me.  I was a desperate woman. 

And so, my sweet in laws came over and took my daughter to auditions, with plans to bring her home as soon as she was done.  As it got later and later, I thought about how long they were keeping her for the auditions, but didn't give it much thought as that is not that abnormal.  And then the phone rang with my father in law on the other end telling me that their car had overheated and flooded out antifreeze in the parking lot of the community center.  They were sitting there waiting for their ride. 

Ah, if you didn't laugh, you'd cry. 

During the night wasn't much better.  I watched several episodes of "Without A Trace" because I was home alone and tend to act like a teenager whose dad is away whenever my husband is out of town.  (My husband loathes the tv and calls it "unproductive," which is correct.  So being unproductive was the most rebellious thing I could think of to do last night.  I am such a rebel.) 

Note: he will watch sports on tv and also "24."  For some reason, this counts as productive time to him.  Not sure about that logic, but so be it.  Marriage is about concessions, right?

Back to my story: just as I had made up my mind to go to bed, my baby woke up in a wretched state.  I sat with her on the couch for awhile just letting her medicine take effect, got her all tucked back in, and headed to bed.  I was just drifting off to sleep when my other sick one started coughing.  This was sometime around midnight.  I got back out of bed and headed up to give him medicine.  Finally, blissfully, I slept-- except for when one of them coughed over the monitor, which was pretty frequent.  And then, just five short hours later, the baby got up again.  I got up, got her all doped up again, then laid back down.  I dozed until around 6:30 when I had to get up to make sure my oldest was up for school.  Then at 7 something, my four year old woke up.  For the morning.  And so, my day had begun.  And I am walking around thinking, "Did I sleep?"  Thank goodness for large mugs of very strong Starbucks coffee. 

The very cool thing is my father in law (bless him) took my oldest to school for me so that I did not have to put these sick children in my cold car.  And he even offered to pick him up from school for me.  Double blessings.  My mom is also coming over to take my 12 yo to get her hair cut, which is such a huge help, and fun for my 12 yo too.  Though I am not a fan of Hillary Clinton, I often think about the title of her book "It Takes A Village To Raise A Child."  I don't know if it takes a village to raise one child-- but it definitely takes a village to raise six!!  I am grateful for my village of helpers today.