She’s asleep. Under the pastel crocheted baby blanket I made several years ago. It may not make it through these teething days, where she vigorously pulls its threads over her shiny new baby tiger teeth. But for now it’s doing its job, keeping her warm as she drifts off to Dreamland for her afternoon nap.

He’s asleep, too. Under the queen-size sheet from Penneys, under the navy blue down comforter, under another crocheted blanket, made many moons ago. I really haven’t made that many blankets. It just so happens that my two favorite people are being covered by them now. (What a nice feeling.) Poor guy—he’s sick. Recovering actually, from two days of fever and body aches.

And I wonder, why am I not sleeping?

Before long she’ll be awake again and our familiar cycle, sleep/wake/eat/play, will continue and I’ll curse the precious moments I wiled away in the face of the iMac. No fever, few body aches, but I’ve got a cold raising cain in my sinuses. At 3:30am I thought someone had the bones of my face in a vise-grip, threatening me with a long painful death-by-congestion. Three pillows, two Sudafed, one extra-strength Tylenol and one hour later I was sleeping like a log, awakened only by the baby voice across the hall at 7:45.

It’s been an interesting experiment, caring for a baby while feeling sick—and caring for an even sicker husband. And that’s why I’m still staring down the computer screen, luxuriating in personal emails and random articles. In an hour I may be hanging my head in exhaustion while pushing bitefuls of chicken and peas in Livia’s direction, but at least I will have had this. This me-time. This exposure to the outside world. I will have had you and you will have had me and I will have felt like a part of society again.

God bless the internet.