It’s been a rough week at our house. Just as I was getting over my month-long cold, my daughters got sick. It started last Friday with a bad case of conjunctivitis in my two-year old’s left eye. The next day my four-year old’s right eye was red and swollen, and by that evening they had both spiked fevers. My husband flew across the country on a business trip the following afternoon.

We spent the next thirty-six hours almost entirely cooped up in our tiny house. We did go for a walk on Monday morning; it was a beautiful day and the girls rode in the stroller, bundled in soft brown blankets and equipped with sippy cups and extra tissues. Nonetheless, they were fussy and crying by the time we got home half an hour later. We made towers out of blocks and necklaces out of beads, we read books and drew pictures. It was all fun enough, but by Tuesday afternoon, I was exhausted and grumpy, desperate for space and silence. I put the girls in front of the TV and went to take a shower.

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