Happy Independence Day!

Are we celebrating the long weekend with a barbecue, fireworks, good friends, and the avoidance of Santa Bell? Nope. That would be fun, sure, but not very original, and we at Casa de Tillman are nothing if not original. No, we are whooping it up this Fourth of July with a fever (Maggie), no sleep for two nights (Chelsa, Maggie, and Ian), and vast quantities of coffee (Chelsa and Ian). The kids are, as you can see, dressed with a nod to the flag's colors, and we are having hot dogs for dinner, but that is about as far as my patriotism extends, especially since I am not actually, you know, an American. Maggie is the worst possible kind of sick -- she is fussy and hot like the sun at intervals, but she has no other discernible symptoms, so as soon as we get the fever down with Tylenol/cool baths, she becomes irrepressibly lively, which then drags the fever back up, and so on. At least one of us, as I just informed her grimly over my fourth cup of coffee, is taking a very long nap today if heaven and earth has to move to make it happen.