I would like to think of myself as a Morning Person. You know, one of those creatures who just springs out of bed, often without an alarm. One of those creatures who welcomes the new day with a stretch and a smile. One of those creatures who says, Hello day or if marginally more bad-ass, Bring it on.

I would like to be like this. But I am more the creature who throws her covers over head, curls into a toasty little ball under there, and pretends she does not hear those kiddos calling. That’s more my style.

Husband is of a different breed. He rises early to ensure a bit of quiet time with Morning Joe and his hot tea before his ladies make their cameo in his day. He insists that starting the day on his own terms, with this tiny stretch of peace, makes for a better day. And maybe it does.

Today. Today I am up. I am out. It is 5:49am and I am already at Starbucks sipping my grande. There are few of us here. It is still dark outside, and cold. In ten minutes, I will walk a few blocks to a spin class. That’s right; I am not just awake but ambitious. I plan to cram in a high-octane workout before slipping into the morning rush with the girls. We’ll see how it goes, right?

The thing is that I believe in change. I think we can train ourselves to be Morning People. I think we can convince ourselves to see things, and do things, differently. Am I fooling myself? How long do you think this Project Morning Person will last?

Oh, if so inclined, please send me good vibes between 6:15 and 7am this morning. I am hoping to survive spin without a fatigue-induced flip off the old bike.

When do you wake up in the morning? Are you a Morning Person? Have you always been? What’s your favorite workout these days? Anyone a Soul Cycle devotee?

“Love is a game in which one always cheats.”

Honore De Balzac

If you knew someone was cheating on your friend, would you tell your friend?

This is purely hypothetical. (I think. I hope.)

On Saturday morning, I checked my email. I checked my email and I saw a message from my friend. I opened the message and learned that her husband’s father had died just an hour before she wrote the message. He was sick, but being treated, and his death was sudden. My friend and her husband were skiing with their kids and did not make it home before he passed.

I read the email and I felt a rush of sadness. Sadness for him, this guy I know and like very much. Because I know what it feels like, and what it means, to lose a father. I am three-plus years out from losing Dad and my grief is still here, hovering, lingering, shaping me. It is more subtle in its presence, more quiet in its questions, more wily in its ways, but it is here. And Saturday, I felt it. I did. I was brought back to the day Dad died, a day that was surreal and slippery and just plain sad. I remember what my Big Girl wore that day. She was eighteen months. Basically bald.

She wore a gray tutu. I remember how she ran around twirling as we all sat there at my parents’ kitchen table bleary-eyed and stunned. My girl’s twirling saved me a bit that day. It did.

Saturday shaped up to be a good, sturdy day. Standard weekend fare. We spent hours in pajamas. There were juice boxes and art projects and cartoons. There was a trip to the playground. There were tears and laughs and snuggles. There was love. In the evening, Little Girl was fussy and I gave her a bath in hopes of soothing her before bed. I plopped her in the water and soaped her up and rinsed her. And then I watched. I watched her splash and squeal. I watched her study the tiny soap bubbles on the surface of the water. I watched as she poked these bubbles with her little fingers. I watched as her eyes grew wide and wild when she saw a little pink object pop up from below. Her own toe.

I watched. It was something I’ve seen so many times. But it was also brand new. I smiled.

Grief is a terrible and tricky beast. But there is something to be said for grief and what it can do. If we let it bloom, if we let it in, grief can make the little mundane moments that pepper our days absolutely magical. It can make those little snippets of ordinary life glisten and glow.

Like tiny little soap bubbles in a baby’s bath.

G – I am so sorry. There are no words.

{If you are not so into drawn-out family vomit sagas, stop now.}

Maybe I was feeling extra vulnerable yesterday because I knew deep down that my entire family was about to be ravaged by the stomach flu that sidelined me on Monday?

Honestly, I thought we were in the clear. I got sick on Sunday night and was in recovery mode Monday and Tuesday. Husband and the girls were fine. How lucky, huh? Not so fast. While Big Girl and I were walking home from school (it was an unusually balmy January afternoon), Nanny sent the following text: Middle Girl is crying. Says her tummy hurts.

My (utterly eloquent) message back: Crap. Keep me posted.

Minutes later, from Nanny: She threw up!

As my eldest and I strolled home, we got several more texts and you know just what they said. When I arrived home, Middle Girl was in bed napping. That is, until I heard her vomiting her mac and cheese lunch into her hair over the sound monitor. A quick bath and change into ballerina pajamas and she was back on the couch, balled-up. Every twenty minutes or so, she grabbed for my arm and gave me that sweet and sad look with her blue eyes and I marched her off to the toilet. Rinse and repeat all afternoon and evening. She munched on a lonely Saltine and sipped some fancy water (Pedialyte) and curled up for bed on a blow-up mattress by the foot of our bed. During the whole ordeal? Barely a tear.

Husband was the next to fall. After dinner, my good man ran out to purchase the aforementioned Saltines and when he returned, he shot me a look that said, I am not okay. He melted into the couch, got sick fifteen or so minutes later, and then hopped over Middle Girl’s mattress throughout the night to make it to that magic bowl.

But the saddest by far? Little Girl. At one point as we were all trying to fall asleep, we heard a few coughs and whimpers on her monitor. We heard this and turned on the video monitor and saw our baby squirming around, but then she settled, and appeared to be sleeping. Phew, I mumbled. Foolishly. Husband, thoughtful man even when wildly ill, said that maybe I should check and make sure she didn’t get sick in her crib. Off I went.

When I opened the nursery door, I smelled it. I tiptoed to her crib and there she was, my sweet little girl, sleeping face down in a pool of cheery orange vomit. I plucked her from the nastiness. Her face was covered. The tips of her eyelashes were orange. Her blue eyes were red. I stripped her down and wrapped her in a towel. She played with a rubber ducky on the floor as I stripped her crib, changed the sheets, and threw all tainted items into the wash. Then there was bath. Though clearly miserable, she smiled a bit and splashed a bit. More pajamas. Another sleep sack. A bunch of cuddles on the rocking chair and I put her back in the crib (on a towel). She didn’t cry.

And I curled up to sleep on the daybed in her room. The place where I spent so many nights during her first months. Though exhausted and disgusted, it felt like an odd privilege to be back there, curled up, inches from my babe, listening to her breathe, and sleep. The problem though? I couldn’t. I couldn’t sleep. But I stayed there for hours, waiting for her to cry, to get sick again. Mercifully, she didn’t. Around 2:30am, I sneaked back into my own bed. The only issue was that Middle Girl had climbed in on my side and splayed herself like a starfish. I made it work.

At 5am, Little Girl cried again and so I went to her. This time, no smell, no sickness. Again, I curled up on that blue flowered bed and this time I slept. Goodness did I sleep. Until 7am when my sick hubby came to retrieve me to tend to the big girls who were awake.

So now? We are all up. PJ-clad, various levels of sicky. The baby is up t0o and seems to be on the mend. The wild card is Big Girl. She hasn’t gotten sick yet. My overwhelming instinct is to keep her home from school today, that she is a ticking sick bomb. Or maybe, just maybe, she has an immune system of steel?

Okay, that’s all folks. Sorry to regale you with the details of my brood’s descent into stomach flu hell, but somehow it makes me feel better to acknowledge my current reality here, to realize that my kids, even when tested and twisted by terrible germs, are really quite amazing and resilient.

Okay, must go. Need to fix Middle Girl an “ice chip sundae,” whip up a “fancy water bottle” for the baby, check on my man, and explain to my biggest that she will not be going to school because she might get sick at any minute. Alas.

Why do you think it can be helpful to record these stories despite their patent ick-factor and utter lack of profundity? Do you think it is the right call to keep Big Girl back from school? Seriously, I want your thoughts on this one. And what if she doesn’t get sick today – Do I send her tomorrow then?

My favorite posts on this blog are my vulnerable ones. The ones where I sit at this screen and admit being lost, examine my struggles, and say: I don’t know. To me, these posts are the most raw, the most human, the most universal.

My favorite conversations in life are my vulnerable ones. The ones where we sit together and admit being lost, examine our struggles, and say: We don’t know. To me, these conversations are the most raw, the most human, the most universal.

My favorite stories, read and written, are the vulnerable ones. The ones where characters convene and admit being lost, examine their struggles, and say: We don’t know. But maybe that’s okay. Maybe that’s real. Maybe that’s grand.

Vulnerability. It’s clearly something I revere and yet it’s hard. There are times when I feel extra porous, keenly vulnerable, and my instinct is that this is bad, something to alter, to flee from.

Now is one of those times. I’m not sure why.

I think I am feeling vulnerable because my littlest is almost one and I feel like it’s time to up the ante professionally and I’m not sure how I feel about this. I think I am feeling vulnerable because after thirty-three years on this good earth, I’m not sure exactly who I am or what I want. I think I am feeling vulnerable because after almost three years here at this blog, I’m not sure what exactly it is, what I want it to be. I think I am feeling vulnerable because I have recently witnessed fallibility, true and scary and beautiful fallibility, in a friend. I think I am feeling vulnerable because I’m pondering, and living, a profound change in my days and my ways. I think I am feeling vulnerable because I have three small creatures to raise and I want to do a good job and I’m not always sure what that means. I think I am feeling vulnerable because I want very much to be a good wife and daughter and sister and friend and citizen and there are no instruction manuals to reference. I think I am feeling vulnerable because I am waking up to the reality that life is change, constant and compelling, sometimes crippling. I think I am feeling vulnerable because my body and mind are impossibly weak, just on the other side of a wicked flu.

I think these are some of the reasons. Not all, but some.

And as I write them, and read them, these reasons, I smile. I smile because this right here is real. I smile because this right here is honest. I imagine I am not the only one out there, out here, who feels both lucky and lost, riddled with uncertainties, insecurities, also inspirations.

So. I’m not sure what I am saying here other than I am feeling inexplicably, richly vulnerable today. And that’s okay. Maybe better than okay.

Maybe, somehow, it’s good.

Do you ever feel inexplicably vulnerable? Do you agree that in many ways vulnerability is reality? Do you agree that vulnerability (within bounds) is a good thing?