Things did not improve overnight. I woke up with a full-blown sore throat. Dad was coughing and hacking. BB's mom was also sick. In retrospect, I might’ve figured this out from the fact she was coughing the entire day previous and slept entirely through Christmas dinner. I chalked it up to her usual cough (her lungs never recovered after covid) and her usual tiredness (she’s always exhausted from work and taking care of a toddler, and it’s worse now that said toddler is sick and waking up bawling every 90 minutes). But no, she's sick on top of all that. She went to urgent care in the evening and got diagnosed with flu and an ear infection.
And BB wasn’t any better. He had a couple of good hours in the morning, but then his fever spiked. He spent the middle part of the day variously crying, sleeping, or flopped on the couch. I was quite fatigued too and spent most of that time beside him. His mom declared it a brainrot day and we spent the whole day watching “If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.” (Normally BB is allowed maybe half an hour of TV at max, and most days no TV at all.)
The fascinating thing was, my heart was working overtime all day. Like I’d get up from the couch to slowly walk to the bathroom, and fitbit would be like “You’re earning zone minutes! Keep it up!” I didn’t feel any different heart-wise, and certainly was not exercising, but I logged 229 active zone minutes that day. (My average is 66. On an active downtown day I might hit 100+.)
By evening, BB had perked up enough to open a couple of Christmas presents—but just a couple, because once they were opened, he wanted to play with them instead of opening more. He got a set of jelly duplos and a multicolor Jenga set (he’s way too young for Jenga, but he can still play with the blocks). Meanwhile I was fading fast. I nearly fell asleep watching him play with his jelly duplos (but I had to stay awake, can’t leave a two-year-old unsupervised and all the other adults in the room were asleep…) I ate dinner on autopilot. I could feel myself talking in slow motion. I went to bed shortly thereafter, inconveniencing everyone in the house because the couch is a popular after-dinner hangout spot. Twelve full hours of sleep let’s go
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