C came down with a little cold yesterday, and although she feels better today and her nose is still running clear, she has a little fever so we’re home today. Rather than keep up the pretense of working from home while tending to her I decided just to take a sick day. So we’ve had movie day on the couch—C in her cow costume and red jingle-bell socks—we've watched Finding Nemo and the first part of Mary Poppins. Now she’s upstairs napping, and a light snow is falling outside. We made a quick trip to the grocery store and will do some cooking when she wakes up—brownies from the box, corn muffins and a casserole for dinner. Shh—don’t tell R.

Update: She woke up gooey and blubbery and her fever’s up, so I’ve dosed her up with Tylenol and we are watching the rest of Mary Poppins, which she keeps calling Baskin Robbins.

We had a good weekend—are working on painting the baby’s room. We picked a beautiful color called “beach glass” which matches some fabric someone gave us for curtains for C’s room, before she went with the rainbow canopy theme. It’s like a seafoam green with blue tones. It looks great, although it’s drying slightly bluer than we’d thought. So apparently we’re bucking tradition and painting a baby girl’s room baby blue. Ah well.

As I was washing walls and painting the ceiling I kept thinking about Mary, and wondering how she prepared for Jesus’ birth. The nesting instinct has got to be almost as old as humanity itself, but how different the nesting tasks are!

Update: Now she's wearing the cow costume, jingle bell socks and the brown headband with feathers she made on "Native American Day" at preschool. She's also asking to put on a wedding veil and dress--old lace curtains given to us by an older member of the church--only she calls it her "sweating dress."

I may never go back to work again.