"I thought I heard thunder last night. Must have been Satan's stomach growling."

We've been sick lately, the small child and I. Runny noses, massive sinus headache for me, hopefully not for her, though how the eff would I know anyway? Funny story about headaches, when I worked at the group home and was just learning sign language one of the girls came up to me, made her hands look like 2 guns pointing towards each other and gestured above her eyebrows, in kind of an annoyed way. She was very interested in her looks, always wearing the play make up and staring in the mirror. I thought she was commenting on the state of her eyebrows and signed they looked fine to me. A little while later she did it again, and I repeated her eyebrows were fine, she didn’t need to do anything. After a bit the other staff came back from wherever she had been and the child said the same thing to her. The staff said, “Oh you have a headache? You need some Tylenol? ” *forehead slap* I felt so bad. I’d developed a cough as well, (My cold, remember? I’m about to go off topic again too, do try to keep up.) which oddly enough totally makes me miss smoking. Well, more than usual. I was trying to figure out why, I never really had a smokers cough or anything, and what I came up with is that smoking was like a light scratch on my lungs, like when you have an itch on your leg and you absentmindedly scratch it with your other foot. You’re almost not aware you’re doing it, but you feel a sense of satisfaction when it no longer itches. Well my cough is kind of the same way, it scratches my lungs, giving me a similar feeling as when I’d smoke. *sigh* What I wouldn’t give to have unlimited money and regenerative capabilities. Anyway, G was across the room the other day and I coughed, it was a loud rattly one, but it didn’t last long. Without hesitation, she turned directly around and ran her little butt over to me as fast as she could, wrapped herself around my legs and just stayed there. She is so cute when she runs. I’d alarmed her, but she didn’t know the sound had come from me. She didn’t look up to see where it came from or what it was, or stop to consider the safest place possible. Her first instinct was that I was the one to run to, I would protect her. Wow. I’m still amazed by this baby, and by motherhood in general. Each new word she speaks, each new skill she masters, I’m so proud of her, but it’s the things she does without practice, that no one consciously teaches her that bring me to my knees. I am so thankful for her, she is my joy.