"Mommy, I frowed up."

It is 3 a.m. My daughter's plaintive voice is an arrow piercing my sleep. As I struggle for consciousness and feel her burning forehead, I know it is the last sleep I will experience for at least a week. Before I even reach for the Tylenol, I begin mentally canceling all plans and anything resembling a life for the foreseeable future.

My 4-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, has the flu, but this is just the beginning. We are under siege. Everybody in my family will eventually get sick in a sort of perverse game of tag. And of course, I will get sick, too. Who cares if it's February in Chicago? I might not see the sky for at least a month.

Elizabeth caught it at preschool. She catches everything at preschool. One cough or sneeze from an uncovered young mouth and trillions of virus molecules hurtle through the atmosphere toward unsuspecting new host organisms.

When my daughter was younger, I tried to avoid the cycle of sickness by being an isolationist. I yanked her out of Gymboree, canceled playgroup and interrogated my friends about the health of their children before clearing them for contact. We didn't get sick, but we got lonely. I began to feel like Howard Hughes. We rejoined the human race. We got sick.

I am on my own. My husband has only a vague awareness that our child is ill. The nightly sick calls are the equivalent of a small gnat buzzing in his ear. He will stir slightly then turn over and go back to sleep. For the duration of the illness, Daddy develops a sudden attack of night deafness, similar to the hearing disability he experienced when our infant woke up crying for her 2 a.m. bottle.

The Flu: Day 1. I call the doctor when Elizabeth's temperature shoots up to 104 degrees. A friend drives to the drugstore in a snowstorm to get the prescribed medicine. Elizabeth refuses to take it. I mix it with chocolate pudding. Now it tastes like medicine in chocolate pudding. She still doesn't like it, but I coax two teaspoons down. One minute later, my alchemy makes a return appearance on the white carpet. My husband, who has witnessed this scene, ducks into his study.

Night 1. I spend the night feeding my feverish daughter ice chips, then slip back to my own bed to snatch a few hours of sleep before she figures out I am gone and comes to retrieve me.

Day 2. Doctor's office, strep test (negative) and a new medicine. I attempt to open the child-proof bottle. I push down and turn as the cap instructs but it does not open. After several minutes of unsuccessful pushing and turning, I fight an urge to throw the bottle against the bathroom wall. Instead I scream.