There's a reason my home looks like a warzone right now.

A hostile enemy has been ravaging our household since Thursday. It goes by the name of Influenza A. You know, I always poo poo the necessity of getting flu shots each year. Then, every time we get the flu, I'm suddenly a believer. So, next autumn will someone please hit me over the head with a brick if you don't see my whole family standing in line at the nearest arm-sticking establishment waiting for our flu shots? I tell you, this stuff is rotten.

Kaitybean started with it first on Thursday. She got into the car after school looking like she'd just been hit by a train. Byt the morning she was miserable -- fever, headache, chills, body aches, cough -- the whole works. The rest of us quickly followed suit and our home was awash with groans and cries. There were pillows and blankets and used tissues everywhere. The kids downed two bottles of children's ibuprofen. I went through about half a bottle of the adult variety by myself over the weekend. Even Jack Jack got into the act, spiking a fever of 100.7 and narrowly avoiding a trip to the emergency room.

You know what makes this story even more fun? Our friend Influenza came through our door just days after his friend Streptococcal Pharyngitis decided to leave.

Blech!!!!!!

So to say my house is a mess would be putting it mildly. I feel this desperate need to wash all of the sheets and scrub the house from floor to ceiling with bleach. Oh yeah, and I'm going to buy us all new toothbrushes tonight. NO MORE OF THIS!

On a somewhat more upbeat note, Mashuga and Kaitybean have also made our house rather warlike. They are like fire and water lately -- two earth-shaping elemental forces that simply cannot coexist. And I'm about ready to tear them both from limb to limb. Really, they can't seem to be within 20 feet of each other without arguing about something. One of their recent arguments:

Mashuga: We're all playing the puppy game. I'm scamp puppy. And Mommy is "mommy dog" and Scud is "brother dog" and you're "sister puppy" and...

Kaitybean: I am not sister puppy!

Mashuga: Yes you are. We're all playing the puppy game.

Kaitybean: No I'm not! I'm not playing the puppy game! I'm not sister puppy! You're so dumb.

But here's the best argument they've EVER had. It started one day when they were arguing in the car on the way to school. (This is after the hour and a half they'd spent bickering since they woke up that morning.) I asked begged, threatened and demanded that one of them PLEASE be the peacemaker and stop responding to the other. They were silent for a moment, then this ensued:

Mashuga: Kaitybean, I'm being a peacemaker.

Kaitybean: No you're not, I'm the peacemaker.

Mashuga: Nuh-uh! I'm the peacemaker.

Kaitybean: NO, I'm the peacemaker.

Mashuga: I'm a better peacemaker than you!!!!

Kaitybean: You ARE NOT. I am the one being a peacemaker here! You don't even know what it means to be a peacemaker!

Mashuga: Yes, I do!

Kaitybean: Do not.

Mashuga: UH-HUH!!!! Mom, tell Kaitybean that I know how to be a peacemaker!

I'm sure you can imagine the convulsions of laughter I was experiencing during this interchange. It made it awfully hard to drive. For a very short while I didn't even mind that they were fighting.