Winning at Parenting.

My three-year-old daughter and I have been taken out this past week by a nasty case of Bubonic Plague. Or Croup. Or RSV. Or Adenovirus. I don't know. Take your pick. We have both been sneezing, hacking and coughing like the tuberculosis wing of a hospital in an Irish short story.

So the other day,  my daughter walked into the kitchen. She looked pathetic and adorable in her pink jammies in the middle of the day. I looked less adorable in my sweats and my sicklady top-knot. We had matching red noses and chapped lips. We both looked slightly bleary eyed and confused. I was drinking hot tea. She was carrying her little pink doll, "Baby," the doll who goes everywhere with her. Her brow was furrowed and she was rubbing a spot on Baby's forehead.

"Oh shit," she said. "I sneezed on Baby's head."

I made a note to myself to talk to my husband about our language. But at that moment, I just wanted to douse that Baby with some Windex.

No more F-bombs and I mean it!

Parenting. I'm winning at it.