All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand – which I've been washing a lot lately. Along with the other one. I wash them both. I promise.

After posting I realized that I actually ought to preface this tale with the following: It's really gross. You might not want to read it.

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If you have a child, and if that child has ever been out in the world with other human children, or if you don't have a child but have ever seen one in its natural habitat, you know that children are filthmongers.

They feed each other rat-walked-on wood chips in the park. They take their stuffed animals swimming in the toilet when you're not looking. They taste everything you don't want them to, like railings, car keys, signposts.

And then they call broccoli yucky. The hell?

I know for a fact that if they find chewed gum on the sidewalk they will pick it up and chew it, because I myself did this. Actually, my friend Natasha found it, started chewing it, and then gave me half. We both remarked on how sandy it was. Probably because we were living in Egypt at the time. There was sand everywhere.

Kids are revoltingly disgusting. (Is that redundant? I don't care.)

Listen. If they have the opportunity to stick their hands in their own poop, they will, and then be all, "Hey! Look what I found!"

They basically careen around in the world like wee human lint sticks except instead of lint they attract germs.

And then they come home and rub those germs all over you and stick them in your mouth in the guise of doing something cute and charming like saying, "Hi!" and pointing with their index finger and then you kiss their adorable little finger and BAM! Germs! Transferred!

And then they go sit in the corner and cackle maniacally.

I'm kidding about that last part. Because what they actually do is get down on the floor and find a hard, shriveled noodle from three days ago and promptly shove it in their mouth.

And what this all leads up to is this: India had about a week of diarrhea. Which I mistakenly attributed to milk.

Because we had the throwing up with the milk, so I put her back on formula while figuring out what to do. And then her tummy got better, and then we started slowly introducing milk - not a lot, but enough to see.

And then she started having diarrhea.

Since she's a baby, and since she will, given the opportunity, handle in her own feces, I know it won't currently embarrass her if I share details. (SCATOLOGY ALERT! Maybe a little too late, now that I think about it.)

Also, I'm sharing her details so I don't have to share mine.

Sometimes it was normal diarrhea, whatever that may be. And sometimes it was the kind of diarrhea that seems like pee, except that you know that it is not because it's brown and smells like mushroom soup would if you covered it and then left it in a warm place for like two weeks.

So there was that. We changed a lot lot lot of diapers. She was up a lot at night. We were up a lot at night. She got a hideous diaper rash. We staggered around like zombies.

And then it was over. But not really.

Because then I got it. And I realized that it sucked more than I knew. I've had approximately six pieces of toast and some noodles since Monday. Oh, and a little cereal.

I'm still afraid to eat, right now, as I type.

But poor little India. I just had no idea how terrible she felt.

Because Monday night, my whole body hurt. My skin hurt. My head hurt. My stomach was upset. I was exhausted. I had chills. I had fever dreams. I thought I was getting the flu.

Tuesday my mom took care of India, while I alternated between bed and bathroom. If I didn't eat or drink, then it was less of an issue. But you know, I'd get hungry or thirsty, as you do, and then...

Wednesday was even more about both places.

Nick called to see how I was feeling and I said, "Pretty crappy!" Which made me laugh which made me almost shit the bed.

HAHAHA....hahahaha...haha...h...a?

I told Nick he's lucky I have cat-like reflexes and excellent sphincter control.

Yesterday, I forced myself to go to the office, because I felt marginally better, and I had a shit-ton (hahahaha...ha...ha) to do.

I wore a maxi-pad so that in the event of a crisis, I'd be able to make it to the bathroom.

Because I'm a smarty-pants. HAHaha...