I’m alive. I’m alive! I don’t want to be dramatic, but my house has been submerged in a sea of sickness and germs, and at one point I feared I might not make it out alive.

Almost two weeks ago my toddler came down with the charming childhood disease known as Hand, Foot and Mouth. Seriously – how disgusting is that name? Where is the creativity? It’s not like we call the flu ‘Nose, Throat and Butt Disease.’ I’m disappointed with the medical community and would like to suggest a few alternatives:

• Bleeding Mouth Blisters
• Can’t Eat, Won’t Sleep Disease
• Zombie Transformation Stage I
• Not Foot-and-Mouth Disease But The Other One
• Not Hoof-and-Mouth Unless Your Kid is a Cow
• Probably Not Mad Cow Disease
• XVII Disease (if we are expected to know Roman numerals, let’s go ahead and start using them more often)

For more than a week I slept sat in the rocker in my child’s room for an average of 2-5 hours per night. I am not a chair sleeper. I am a bed sleeper. Unlike my husband or sister, who both possess the annoying ability to sleep anywhere, anytime (they both fall asleep on an airplane BEFORE IT EVEN TAKES OFF), trying to sleep in a chair is like torture for me.

So there I sat. Rock-and-rock-and-rocking, counting the minutes, patiently waiting for my child’s breathing to reach that slow, peaceful place where she had clearly hit a deep slumber. I would carefully stand, tiptoe to her crib, place her ever-so-gently inside, hold my breath and freeze every limb of my body to see if I stuck the landing, then slowly – S.L.O.W.L.Y – sneak toward the door to make my getaway, and WAAAAAAHHHHHHH NO PLEASE NO she would wake up screaming and we’d do it all over again 7 bazillion times.

But we survived the wrath of HFMD, as we experts like to call it, and I didn’t die in that chair as I feared. So on Saturday I celebrated this achievement the only way I know how – I got a haircut. SNIPPETY SNIP. Time to re-enter the land of the living with a coiffure that is short and sharp…high and tight…business in the front and even more business in the back. Also known as “Your hair looks terrible,” according to my daughter. Things are off to a good start.