Nicolaus and my dad took a walk together. They have a lot of weirdness in common. I snapped this during a recent visit as we were on our way to lunch, just minutes before I abandoned all pretense of being a photographer who doesn’t over-process.

We’re a creative group; we each took the cold and made it our own. Graham turned his into a double ear infection plus a thin layer of snot that covered his entire body and protected him from anyone wanting to touch him. Even though our pediatrician’s office is pretty conservative on antibiotics, they were so grossed out by him and his ears and his snot that they declared no other reasonable option. Lord, give that miserable creature some drugs.

Kevin went the obvious route and turned his into a sinus infection. He’s been down that road enough times to know — go get drugs.

I decided to do something a little different with mine: I went with bronchitis. I’d never had it before and it sounds so much fancier and exciting, and involves less gross mucus and junk. In hindsight, I think I made the wrong call really. Ear infections and sinus stuff aren’t fun, but they aren’t so draining. There are so many little things I do every day that suddenly required too much energy. Talking, walking, showering, typing. Errands. Checking mail. Going to meetings. Answering the phone. Blog updating. Painting. Writing. Laptop repair. Laptop repair! I love my laptop! I’ve been too sick to care about my laptop. That my friends, is dog-ass sick.

That, plus my most dramatic symptom — EVERYONE telling me to go to the ever-loving doctor — finally compelled me to go to urgent care yesterday.

Any time you aren’t going to the doctor mainly because you absolutely can not gather the energy to physically drive to the doctor? You really need to go to the damned doctor.

So Kevin drove me and took the kids to a learning store or whatever while the nice man told me asked me a million nice questions, which I mostly answered “Maybe, I don’t know. I’m just really tired.”
He gave me a nice Z-pack and told me about the nice symptoms of pneumonia to watch out for.

I’ve been asleep or nearly asleep or wanting to be asleep ever since.

Nicolaus is the only one who hasn’t needed drugs to beat this thing. He is still a little congested but at this point his main symptom is total frustration with us all for being so boring and sick and lame.

But Christmas itself was as lovely as possible, things are sort of okay, and I am full of big ideas for 2008 and I can’t wait to get to work and to tell you all about them just as soon as the Z-pack kicks in which I am pretty sure will be any minute now.

1. I saw a thing last night about how 20% of Americans have not even started their Christmas shopping. I’m assuming that is 20% OF the people who celebrate Christmas, because otherwise the statistic isn’t you know, all that exciting. So in my new prostitutional mindset I went OMG! Maybe there’s still time for people to BUY SHIT FROM ME. So if you are one of those people frantically searching for a last-minute gift, and for some reason you are dumb and are looking online where almost everything for sale will need to be shipped but you are hoping maybe somehow you’ve overlooked the one magical gift that will keep you from having to go to the ever-loving mall where not only are the stores packed and the staff overworked but people sometimes SHOOT AT YOU, well ha-hey! I have the thing for you. It is here:
Later than last minute gift for your mom daughter son uncle friend dad boss neighbor etc!

Okay what else does google need to get people here to buy my gift certificate? Perfect art illustration gift fun free boobs.

2. We all got the cold. There really needs to be a word for illnesses that are worse than a cold but not as bad as the flu, because whatever this was is a lot meaner than a cold. It includes a mean-spirited cough and a fever and a general drained outlook on life. Kevin’s turned into a sinus infection, so he and Graham are on antibiotics. I’m feeling better today, just congested which is gross but fine. Nicolaus’ primary symptom was loss of the very will to live, and right now he’s grumpishly eating a yogurt granola bar so I think he’s feeling much better than he was on Friday when he earnestly told me, “This being sick? Being sick like this has really changed my whole life.”

Like it’s MS or something. But you know, food tastes gross when you’re sick and you get tired easier so I do see his point.

3. Yesterday was rough because Graham! Was! Feeling! So much damn better than the rest of us!So he spent the afternoon trying to dive between couches while we used all of our energy to say, “Don’t do that. You’re going to hurt yourself.” We took turns saying it.

Sad how exhausting those words can be.

4. Finally Kevin got the brilliant idea to take them out of the house. Out? Where there are people? Who don’t want our germs? Yeah. Sorry. We went to see Mr.Magorium’s Whatever Emporium. The movie was a little formulaic but totally cute, and best of all it froze our children like a tractor beam. So Kevin and I got a little rest, the boys had an absolute blast and oh my god if it works every time we might have to buy daily season tickets to go see that movie. Two mitten hand thumbs way, way up.

5. I looked down at one point and Graham was holding mitten hand up to watch the movie. During the last few days we have also seen mitten hand share Graham’s coughing fit, poke his fingery nose into my cup so he could drink, have his diaper changed TOO, eat lunch, take a bath, argue with Graham’s other hand, and be gently tucked in at night. Oh my god I love this boy.

6. As lame as I might sound through all of this, I am totally excited about Christmas. Presents are mostly ready and wrapped — I just need to find something for my father in law and we’re set. The house looks moderately not horrible. We’re going to have some family over on Christmas day and cook Mexican food and cookies and do our darndest not to have any germs on us anywhere by then so everyone doesn’t end up getting our cold and have their whole lives changed like we did. God bless us, everyone!

Yeah, he’s still sick. When he brought me a tabletop electric fan and asked me to plug it in so he could blow it in his ear, we knew it might be time to take him to the doctor. Good thing we did — poor booger-covered wretch has two ear infections and a sinus infection. Basically the only thing that stopped it from being worse is that he only has two ears.

He and his new friend Mitten Hand did not like the doctor visit one damned bit.

Have you ever seen Oobi? Graham hasn’t, but it only took one time of me making my hand talk for him to demonstrate why the creators of Oobi were so smart to come up with that idea for a show. Based on what I’ve seen here during the last week, I would say that the act of making your hands have a mouth and talk to a child clearly taps into a deep-seated instinctive need to hold conversations with hands.

I don’t know why he named his own talking hand Mitten Hand — Mitten Hand is apparently a cat so I would think that Kitten Hand would have been more apt, especially since Mitten Hand does not wear mittens, but hey. He’s two. Let’s give him a fucking break. I am sure by the time he is four or five, all of his pretend games will make total sense. That’s what UnderDog, the boy who isn’t really a dog exactly but he kind of looks like a dog but really he is just a boy with magical powers told me anyway, and he has no reason to lie that I can think of.

So Mitten Hand. I knew we were headed for ridiculous cuteness about a week ago when I slid quietly into their room to check on them. Graham was laying in his bed having this conversation with Mitten Hand:

MITTEN HAND: (in a low growly voice) I love you Graham. What is your name?

GRAHAM: Mynameis Graham Ard.

MITTEN HAND: I love you.

GRAHAM: I am Graham.

And so began a craze that swept the nation I assume. It’s very big here anyway.

So Mitten hand enjoys eating his own tiny lunch, served next to Graham’s. And Mitten Hand sips Graham’s drink. When I read their stories at night, Graham holds up his hand in front of the book so that Mitten Hand can see.

Mitten Hand has a mama. Her name is — ready? — Mama Mitten Hand. She lives at the end of my arm, which is a little inconvenient for me when I want to eat or type or drive or hold things or write or make a phone call or not talk with my hand. But sometimes what can you do? Mitten hand needs his mama. And I’m a sucker for a kid with a sinus infection and a raspy little voice.

Well I had wanted to design some neat holiday cards to give you all as a way of thanking you for being my most loving and wonderful internet, but by now I hope you gave up waiting and bought or made your own or did what I did and decided you know what? No!

Then I was going to make you all a really cute tree ornament craft project thingy, with a PDF you could download and use as a template and… it was a project you could totally do at work or school when no one is looking and oh it was so nice in my head. If you were holding off on decorating your tree just in case I might do something like that, now might be a good time to go ahead and hang up the glass ornaments.

My next idea was to design like a homemade little gift thing. Something lovely and unusual that you could make and give to people you like, but not snooty people who think it sucks when you make them a present. For those people you have to buy them the most expensive thing you can find at Spencer’s.

So Christmas is a week away, and I hope you haven’t wrapped and labeled everything already because look! I have something for you! To download and print and cut out and tape to your packages or whatever! Free holiday gift tags.

Now. Here’s the catch. I suck and I couldn’t figure out the correct way to load these all into a nice Avery-label type of template for you. So you have a couple of choices:

1. Download the single tag and use your own magical medallion that Santa brought you last Christmas to magically know how to drop these into word so that you can print them out on Avery self-stick labels, and then feel smug because you are a lot smarter than me.

2. Download my 10-up sheet of tags and print it out on cardstock, then cut them out with scissors or whatever sharp cutty thing you have around.

No real restrictions on use. I’d rather you not sell them without my permission because doing so violates my legal artist’s right to think you are all good people. Other than that yay, go to town. Print them out and put them in a jar of spiders if that’s what makes you happy inside.

Link to download the tag that says “No, it’s not a goddamn wii”

Download wii tags – 10 on one sheet

Tags that don’t have that part about the wii on them

Ten tags on one sheet.

To use them, just right-click and Save as… then open the PDF and print away.

ps. You don’t have to, but it would be neat to know if anyone actually uses these. If you have a second to leave a comment or drop me a note I’d be pathetically excited. creative@tiffanyard.com

pps. I’m not telling you what to do but I think these are especially fun if you DID get someone a goddamned wii.

ppps. Graham is still sick. So no scanning yet.