Stay-cation, Part II: the partial suck

The Tyrant slept in until 7 a.m. yesterday morning, and then she entertained herself while I drank coffee and read the paper in bed.
We’ve turned a corner, I thought happily. Every few minutes she would run into my bedroom and check in with me before scurrying off to do her business. I was finishing entire articles and even contemplating world affairs.
On the fifth or sixth check-in, she seemed very excited. She spoke a lot of gibberish, pantomimed doing a shot of something, then ran out. I thought I should investigate.
She somehow had toppled my purse from the kitchen counter, dug through it and found my emergency supply of Benadryl. (I have kept an emergency supply of Benadryl in my purse ever since the Tyrant sat in a fire ant pile last month.)
She managed to twist off the top and take a swig. And boy, was she proud of herself. “I did it! I did it!” she shouted about a thousand times.
Well. I decided I shouldn’t tell Husband about this due to the recent multi-vitamin incident, which really wasn’t my fault because it was SUPPOSED to be a childproof cap, but I told him anyway and he wasn’t happy. It might have set the tone for Stay-cation Day #2.
I really wanted to leave for the zoo by 9 a.m., but Husband’s previously mentioned clean floor fetish got in the way. In addition he was moving super slowly because he had suddenly developed some sort of chest infection, which made me angry.
I consider it one of my most critical faults that I become infuriated when Husband is sick. As soon as he starts with the coughing and achy business, I start my eye-rolling. I am not sure why I’m like this. It’s possibly because he doesn’t seem able to distinguish between being really sick -- I-can’t-get-out-of-bed-sick -- and what I call “man-sick,” which is more like Boy-I-wish-I-felt-a-little-better-sick. So I never know whether to ban the children from his room and cook some homemade soup, make sure the life insurance payments are current, or just smile sympathetically as I leave him with a couple of kids. Really, if he ever develops some serious illness, I may have to kill him.
At any rate, we finally left the house at 10:24 a.m. We stopped at Starbucks. The Tyrant was well-behaved in light of the Benadryl. After getting back on the road, I was in the middle of telling Husband a very important story involving the previous evening’s Pterodactyl meltdown when he spilled some iced latte down the front of his white t-shirt.
It shook him up, possibly because the chest infection was already spreading to his brain. I kept reminding him we were going to the zoo, for pete’s sake, and who would care? But I could tell he wasn’t going to move past it, so I purposely spilled some coffee down the front of my white shirt, too, which made him smile a little bit but really pissed me off. Because I had looked a bit put together for a zoo trip, but now looked like a slovenly matron who’d never heard of bleach.
Now here’s the surprising part: we enjoyed our time at the zoo. The Diva and the Pterodactyl especially appreciated when the gorilla peed right in front of them, and the Tyrant still hasn’t stopped talking about the size of that gorilla’s butt.
I enjoyed it, too. Lovely birds everywhere, beautiful foliage, what’s not to love? Aside from the Benadryl and coffee incidents, I thought it was a decent day.
Today, the chest infection became a member of the family. It waffled between glueing Husband to the bed during Wimbledon and helping him thrust the mop over the immaculate floors, after which it temporarily expanded into something like pneumonia. It is currently watching a Cubs game and considering what to have for dinner, but I expect it to carry Husband to bed very soon, certainly before it’s time to take out the dog.
The big activity for the day was going to the library. The Diva checked out books about Barbie, fairies, Rapunzel and Paula Deen’s home cooking. The Pterodactyl picked books about bridges, airplanes and volcanoes. Right now they’re reading the books to the giant stuffed elephants they bought at the zoo.
The chest infection will accompany Husband to work tomorrow, of course, which leaves me in charge of the final day of Stay-cation. I’m not going to be very ambitious. I’ve learned my lesson. Adventure Landing, the zoo, the library -- all worthy field trips. But the Pterodactyl pointed out in his inimitable way that he and his siblings are not impressed with the glamorous life. At the zoo, I tried to interest him in the number of wood storks nesting in a single tree. “Yeah, great, Mom,” he said. “Blah, blah, blah.”
Tomorrow I think we’ll just go to the pool.
NOTE: Husband just read this and is going to bed grumpy because of it, and wants it pointed out that he watched the kids for 1.5 hours while I got my hair cut today.