Optimism

Three of the children in Mabel's class, one of whom was at our party on Sunday, are now ridden with some horrible plague-like virus, and I find myself already looking at her with that nostalgic indulgent expression reserved for pathetically ill children. When I picked her up from school one of the parents involved (who was there, but without her ailing offspring) apologised profusely and said that she thought Mabel's eyes already had the glazed I'm-getting-sick look. I'm hoping against hope that she was wrong, but I can't tell. I thought she looked preternaturally pale with oddly pink cheeks, but she was probably just warm from running around inside, as it was raining in the playground.

She's acting perfectly normally, and this is one of those times when I'm really glad we're still nursing, because I will continue to tout its amazing immune-boosting properties until the moment she comes down with a horrible rash and a fever of 104.

Still, today is her last day of school for the week, so she won't be marinating in the Petri dish that is a classroom full of two- and three-year-olds, so maybe the clanging chimes of doom won't sound quite so loudly in a few days and we'll be spared. Maybe.

We have absolutely no plans for Thanksgiving, and I like it that way. I have no intention of thinking about it till next Wednesday at the earliest (since my mother-in-law will be here from this Friday till Tuesday), though I did see a recipe I wouldn't mind trying.

Sorry, I was distracted there. Dash sat down at the table beside me to do his homework, except that he wasn't so much sitting as jiggling furiously on the chair in deep denial of his need to pee. Twice he stood up to go, and then sat down again, and my last nerve was busy shredding itself on the cheesegrater of infuriation as I waited for him to finally give in. (I'd love you to think that I sat calmly by, letting him figure this out for himself, but I'm not that saintly. I exhorted him vehemently several times to answer the damn call of nature before nature ran down his legs and onto my kitchen floor.) He's gone now. Hang on a minute while my blood vessels return to their normal size.

 Dum-de-dum... Anyway.

One day last week the kids were playing outside on their bikes, as we have been doing every day after school in the lovely autumn weather that has now given way to persistent rain, and Dash was singing-counting to himself as he circled round and round and round. He got to the highest number he could possibly conceive of (probably having skipped a few on the way):

"What's after a hundred and eight, Mummy? Is it a million?"
"No, it's a hundred and nine."
"Wow. And what's after that? Is it a million?"

That's optimism right there. I don't know where he gets it from.