I spent Sunday with no voice, a hacking cough, stuffy nose and an assortment of aches and pains. The cough medicine made me feel like I was sleepwalking in a fog, but it didn’t help reduce the coughing. I swallowed Tylenol just before a coughing fit and one of the pills shot back out. I didn’t know that was even possible.

Doug looked up from his day long Roomba repair and told me to go back to bed. I looked at him through my eyebrows. “Everything will be fine up here. I’ll even wash the dishes.” I sat in a chair and folded clothes in slow motion until I accidentally fell asleep in the chair. I went downstairs. At some point, Evan came down to watch SpongeBob in my room. I woke up freezing and went upstairs to turn up the heat. The heat was off and all the windows were open. I think that I sat and wept until the children closed the windows. I don’t remember.

This morning, I expected a bit of a mess. My family exceeded my expectations. Based on the LAYERS of dirty dishes, all of the bowls and spoons were used at breakfast. Lunch required every single dish and afternoon snacks were eaten from serving dishes. Dinner was improvised with cake pans for plates. It looks like there was some kind of spaghetti battle. The squished pasta in the dogs’ fur must mean that they lost. The only possible explanation for every single cup and glass being used is that my family delicately took no more than a single sip from each glass before getting another glass. Every utensil, dish and pan was delicately balanced on every single inch of counter space and piled high like a bizarre tetris game.

Today, my head feels like it is packed with one too many cotton balls, but I don’t dare let Doug handle everything. His version of watching Evan would involve video cameras and duct tape.