Experts Announce New, Highly-Effective Method of Birth Control!!

It's called "stay at home with your sick child." I guarantee it'll knock the potential future reproductive vibes right outta your procreation tool of choice (it is effective for both male AND female users).

Molly has been sick since, roughly, the 4th of July -- just had a sinus infection and a week later ended up with a nasty virus of some sort that decided to manifest itself in her lower eyelid. What? You didn't know this was possible? Oh, indeedy. You learn all kinds of wonderful medical mysteries when your child is ill.

The other night she woke up crying, and when I touched her, the mommy-hand-thermometer instantly registered in the "DANGER, WILL ROBINSON!!!" range. I took her temp using the handy dandy ear thermometer, which at any other time she likes to chew on - we knew she was legitimately sick when she didn't try to gnaw on the probe or club one of us to death with it.

104.3, which is too close to the end of the radio dial for my comfort. We knew we had a dreaded task ahead of us, one that would require all of our colletive fortitude, strength and cunning.

We had to use the rectal thermometer.

For those of you who don't have kids (and therefore probably still harbor a desire to have sex again, at some point), ear thermometers are accurate, but rectal thermometers apparently are the pinnacle of precision. Children who still chew on crib slats like a deranged beaver cannot be trusted to hold a poison-filled glass mercury stick in their mouths, so to get the most accurate reading and see if that 104.3 is really HIGHER than you think, thus necessitating a trip to the ER or at least a panicked phone call to Grandma, you have to resort to the ol' butt stick method.

The "What to Expect: The Toddler Years" mush-covered lovey version of how to do this is like: "Gently insert one inch (ONE INCH!?!?! The kid is 33 inches tall!!! You are not sticking something 1/33 of the way into ME via that particular orifice!!!!) of the thermometer into the rectum, using a generous amount of lubricant (yes, because that makes the baby MUCH less likely to want to disintegrate you with its laser baby death ray eyes)...hold for TWO MINUTES, applying gentle pressure to the buttocks to keep the thermometer in place."

TWO MINUTES?!?!?!!? This is a child who will not stand still and watch (M)Elmo for more than 11 seconds at a time. And you want me to shove a cold stick of glass covered in Vaseline a fair amount of space into her butt, knowing WHAT COMES OUT OF SAID BUTT at any point in time, and HOLD IT THERE for TWO MINUTES?!?!?!?!?! The book suggests singing to the child, or rubbing its back.

At at time like this, when you are trying not to lose your grip on the little glass stick of death and accidentally ram it far enough in to cause another belly button protrusion, you are NOT thinking "hmmm, I wonder what that 4th verse of 'If You're Happy And You Know It' is??" I can tell you it is NOT "If you're happy and you know it, stick a thermometer up your ass and THAT'LL wipe the smile off your damn face!!!!" Although it should be.

Molly was sick enough that honestly, she really didn't put up that much of a fight during this ordeal. Dan and I were more traumatized than she was. Over the next 3 days she developed an eye infection and coughed up half a lung (which I'm sure she subsequently fed to the dog, as regurgitated Molly food is one of his favorites), and was forced to stay home from daycare for three whole days.

That's three whole days of Mommy and/or Daddy watching endless amounts of "Franklin" and "Little Bear" and "Regular Bear" and a whole lot of other bears, and Sesame Street, and Disney movies, and so on and so on. None of that sounds like a particularly bad gig in and of itself, but throw in a snot-covered, temper-tantrum-throwing, pick-me-up-no-put-me-DOWN, food throwing, Mommy-slapping little firecracker whose sleep schedule is off and who just feels YUCKY, DAMMIT, and Mommy's magic wand can't fix the problem -- well, it's not a good time.

This morning when Daddy and Mommy AND Molly left the house, on our way back to work and daycare as usual, I am certain that Murphy breathed a huge sigh of relief to have the house back to himself and no one chasing him around trying to wipe their drippy nose on his tail. Molly wasn't very nice to him, either.