so beautiful, so cute, so deadly...

The beautiful punim pictured above belongs to Ava, AJ & Victoria's baby girl. The Brandt clan was at Overboard's birthday party on Sunday, and Ava had a lot of fun eating fruit and other sticky things, and watching Sadie dodge her and hunt for fallen food scraps. Unfortunately, Ava is fighting off a cold, and she not only got her mommy and daddy sick, but seemed to have nabbed Overboard and Evenkeel as well. Of course, this is just something else to look forward to as parenthood nears: the germ factories that children become.

One of the big things I've noticed over the years, as my friends and family have kids, is that when the kid gets sick, so do the parents. And may I just point out that kids get sick ALL OF THE TIME. I'm not the world's best patient, so I'm not exactly looking forward to the inevitable germ warfare. Of course, I will say that I am now a firm believer in flu shots, as this is the first time I've been sick since last fall.

Both Overboard and I stayed home from work today, and we have spent the majority of the day either sleeping or sniffling. While it's nice to get to spend extra time together during the week, this isn't exactly what I had in mind. Oh well. Get used to it now, right?

The ingenious thing about kids being such incredible germ factories is that you can't be mad at them. Who would have thought that "booger patrol" could be so cute?