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Awhile back, my most excellent blogfriend Ms. Prufrock alerted me to the fact that James, my 2nd mostest favoritest band in the whole wide world (behind U2, duh) was touring.

And was going to be in New Jersey.

My head exploded a little bit, because I am reallyreallyreally out of the loop with regard to popular culture and music and what’s going on in the world outside my window. It’s an occupational hazard, I think.

Unfortunately, or so I thought, James was appearing at The Stone Pony, which is a tiny tiny tiny TINY little room of a place down the shore. I figured there was no way I was ever going to get tickets, since my ticket karma is not usually good. And though James isn’t nearly as well-known as they were in 1994 when Laid came out, I figured there would be enough fans to fill the place.

I demanded that my family leave me alone on the morning the tickets went on sale so I could focus all of my considerable mental energy on Ticketmaster. It worked, and tickets were mine.

Then I had to wait. Nearly three months. [taps foot.]

But then, oh. Then.

Yesterday happened.

Freddie and I left The Jillian in the [mostly] capable hands of my mom, brother, and sister-in-law and we headed down the shore. We had a lovely dinner at a pub, then made our way over to the beach, where we parked the car, tried really hard to break the parking meter, and got in line to go inside.

We managed to snag two barstools with an awesome view and that’s where we stayed. I could have wiggled my way up closer to the stage, but we were only about 20 feet away as it was, with the added bonus of a bartender, so… that’s where we stayed.

I sent Ms. Prufrock an email from Freddie’s BlackBerry, because she’s the only person I know who would truly understand. Other people kind of get it, because we all have something we love, but Ms. P knows. Which is why I adore her.

The opening band came out and played for a half-hour, mercifully. They weren’t bad, but they weren’t particularly great, either. I’m sure they’ll be some huge giant force in the next five years and I’ll be able to say I saw them way back when, but… meh.

Twenty minutes later, my life became totally complete. The only thing that would top seeing James at The Stone Pony would be if the guys in The Smiths decide they don’t want to kill each other anymore and they get back together. That’s the ONLY thing.

I’m a rather blackhearted cynic most of the time, and I don’t gush about too many things, but music is the closest I will ever get to religion, and seeing one of the bands I have loved for most of my life, on a stage not 20 feet from me, is the closest I will get to church, I think.

It was a good thing. A very good thing.

We started the week with The Sneezing. A trip to the doctor’s office for a routine checkup did not seem to help, because then we started up with The Snots.

Then *I* got The Snots. And the coughing, which I’ve been doing anyway due to The Allergies.

Then…. the boys started coming down with it. First, Freddie started with The Scratchy Throat. Then Andy started with The Sneezing. Apparently, they both had a verrrrrry rough morning this morning, starting with forgotten IDs and forgetting to put the money in the parking space box thingy at the train station. Oops.

We got the ID thing fixed and the parking situation sorted out. This necessitated me leaving the house before breakfast (and coffee!) to put money in the parking box thingy. While we were out, we stopped off at one of the local drug stores to pick up Cold-Killing Weapons (i.e. DayQuil, cough drops, and Alka-Seltzer Plus) but the stupid place doesn’t open until 9AM. It was 8:30, so Jillian and I sneezled our way to the grocery store next door. Stupid drugstore! They missed out on a $20 sale! Ha!

We made it home and had breakfast and coffee, FINALLY. I had a shot of DayQuil, and it was horrible horrible HORRIBLE but made me feel lots better. Apparently you are supposed to take it every four hours and I believe it because it’s been three-ish hours as of right now and I feel crappy again. BLEH.

This getting a cold thing is for the birds. It sucks. I’m hoping that if we all spend the weekend being sick together, we’ll all get over it together and get on with our lives. [cough]

Here we are in Day Two of The Sniffles. I have no idea where The Jillian caught a cold, but she has one. Sniffles, a slight fever, the sneezing… all good things. Today she is also losing her voice. It’s always hilarious when a toddler sounds like Kathleen Turner.

The thing is, Jillian doesn’t ACT sick. She looks terrible, all pale and whatnot, but she’s still chugging around the house (and the backyard and the park) like it’s no biggie. Meanwile, I haven’t slept in two days and I feel like I’m going to die. Awesome.

If she would just act sick, even a little bit droopy, we could snuggle on the couch and watch Noggin all day while eating Teddy Grahams and juiceboxes. But ohhhhh no. I always suspected she was trying to kill me - now I have proof.

Jillian went to the doctor yesterday for her 2-year-old checkup. She is ridiculously healthy, and also gigantic. 31.5 pounds and 35 inches tall! She got her HepA shot, which is fine, but of course getting shots of any kind strikes fear into the heart of a mother with an active imagination. I don’t believe there’s any risk of her having an adverse reaction to any of her vaccines, so I am getting them all on the recommended schedule, but the fear is always there in the back of my mind.

Plus? I AM INSANE. I’m a recovering hypochondriac! I know everything can kill you!

But of course, the info sheet says “adverse reactions can include tiredness, irritability, etc etc etc.”

Well, she’s got a bit of a cold, which meant that she didn’t sleep last night (nor did I): she’s tired. And she’s TWO YEARS OLD - being irritable is her JOB.

So… yeah. I slept in 90-minute increments last night. Every couple of hours, Jillian would get all stuffy and not be able to breathe (hard to breathe when your nose is stuffed with boogers and your thumb is planted firmly in your mouth, I would imagine), so I would go in her room, pick her up, wipe her nose, rock her back down to sleep (except for that one time when she kicked me really hard so I just tossed her back in the crib), and then head back to sleep-ish myself.

I am fully aware that I have it better than almost any mother I know - my kid slept through the night starting at 5 months and has never had any kind of major issues with ANYTHING. So that makes these sleepless nights tough on all of us, even though they are extremely rare.

Today, we’re both tired and one of us is excessively cranky. On top of that, it’s pouring down rain here so we can’t go outside. We just need to make it to naptime and then we’ll be okay. Maybe.

I know Ms. Prufrock is not a fan of the bulleted-list-of-random-crap-style of blog post. I’m pretty sure she thinks in complete sentences, wheras my brain spews out random words and phrases on a fairly constant basis. So, HERE WE GO!

1. My doctor visit went well. I can breathe again, with the help of a $50 inhaler and a $50 bottle of amazing cough syrup. The bottle has so many warning stickers on it that you KNOW it’s good stuff. Can’t drive, use heavy machinery, or sign contracts while under the influence of this stuff. Also causes blurred vision, dry mouth, extreme sleepiness OR hyperactivity! Yay! I’m supposed to take 1 teaspoonful every 12 hours, but I find if I’m not ready to go to sleep right then, I am useless (well, more than usual) for the entire day. I take it before bed and sleep so soundly that I wake up and whichever arm I happen to be sleeping on is numb. Excellent.

2. The Jillian is talking up a storm lately. She tends to repeat the last three words of whatever I say, so we’re hearing a lot of “Holy shit!” these days. We keep trying to get her to say “President Obama” but have been unsuccessful so far. I think she’s just hedging her bets, but god help us all if she turns out to be one of those close-minded, bigoted right-wingers. I’ll disown her ass.

3. My brother is our long-term houseguest. He’s got a job working for The Man in Homeland Security and needed a place to stay until he finds an apartment or a room or a cardboard box or whatever is in his price range in the NYC area. He found out yesterday that The Man is sending him to Texas or Jupiter or similar for 6 weeks or so of training in How To Be The Man, so he’ll be with us for quite a while. Well, his stuff will, at least. I must say, it’s been nice to have the kid around, plus Jillian loooooooooves him.

4. Something in my fridge died. I just cleaned the fridge out, like a month ago and there’s already some new casualty. Good thing we use those reusable plastic containers instead of the expensive Tupperware crap! I just toss the whole thing in the fridge even if it has arms and calls me by name. In the trash you go, Fridge Alien Baby!

5. Apparently we’re supposed to get smacked around by Tropical Storm Hanna this weekend. To be followed by TS Ike Turner. We need the rain, but I don’t want it all at once. Sheesh. My tomatoes will be unhappy and my basement will flood. Someone needs to schedule these things with me ahead of time.

6. I am knitting The Less-Big, Less-Ugly Sweater and it’s already giving me fits. Apparently, I cannot do math. I’m supposed to increase until I get a certain number of stitches, then decrease until I have a certain number of stitches. I decided to be really smart-like and figure out how many rows it would take to get to the right number of stitches and either they’ve changed the math or I’m extremely stupid and have not counted correctly. Either scenario is equally probable. Math is not one of my strengths, though I used to be really good at it. Anyway, I think I will get it figured out. If not, Freddie will just have to wear it however it gets made.

The child has had a language explosion over this last month. It’s like she turned two and decided all of a sudden to start talking instead of saying random words and phrases.

But the talking? NEVER ENDS.

Nor does the singing.

The funny thing is that we sing the same few songs over and over again with different words, and she has started making up song lyrics on her own. For example, at bedtime we sing a modified version of “Are You Sleeping?” to indicate that it is time to quit building bombs in the living room and go to sleep.

This morning, Jillian and I were in the kitchen making waffles (thank goodness I make them from scratch instead of buying them or we would be homeless) and she started singing “Time for Waffles” to the tune of “Are You Sleeping.”

I was gobsmacked, actually, that she was able to figure out what I was doing and then to sing a song about it. She’s so smart!

Except, maybe not. As I’m typing this, she has a plastic bag on her head that once held blocks and is running into the wall head first. It sounds like this: “stompstompstompstompstomp BLAM! Flhumph! HAHAHAHAHAHA!”

Repeat.

This has been going on for a good fifteen minutes now. I hope she can still get into Harvard with all the head trauma.