What do you do with a not-so-sick sick toddler?

What do you do with a not-so-sick sick toddler?

Take him to the grocery store. Buy him a donut and a new Thomas the Train book. Play choo-choos, race cars, blocks, puzzles, cooking, magnetos, and watch too much Max and Ruby. Then give him fruit snacks and feel serious mom-guilt about it when he falls asleep thirty minutes later having refused an actual lunch. The donut wasn't much of a factor in the lunch embargo--he had only nibbled some of the icing off a few hours earlier.

This is the hard day of a multi-day illness. The one where the fever is probably gone, but its still within the 24-hour window where you're not supposed to dose them with motrin and send them to daycare (I was sorely tempted...). He's too sick for school, too well to sit still. And too two to be reasonable about simple demands (such as not bouncing on the couch, not climbing on mommy when she attempts to do pushups, and to just pick one of the three identical yogurt cups and move on with life).

I'd actually rather be at work right now than sitting on my couch surfing the web while he sleeps. I can't count on how long of a nap Trystan will take (Yesterday, for his grandma & grandpa, 4 hours. Tuesday for me, 30 minutes). So any task more complicated than laundry isn't feasible. Murphy's law (or is it Scott's Law of Luck? Or just Mom to the Terrible Two's) states that as soon as I become productive or interested in something, he shall arise to terrorize the house. But if I'm a couch potato, I'll have to carry him to the car still snoring when its time to pick his sister up from school.

Ah well, I bought myself a Cosmo at the grocery store this morning (magazines are expensive these days)...haven't read one in years. And now I feel old. Really old. I'm going to start clucking my tongue and shaking my finger at all of the twenty-one year olds who believe any of this crap. Speaking of which, why am I still typing? I'm only halfway through the issue...