My Granddaughter Makes Me Sick.

Seriously. I love her happy little self to bits, of course, but I watched her for a couple of hours yesterday while her mom ran some errands. She is happy, smiling, playing with toys, bouncing in her bouncer, and sticking her hands in her mouth and then in mine. Yeah. Her nose was running in a spectacular fashion again (my daughter has figured out that her two companions in the baby room at day care have older siblings in the snot-full preschool). Miss D is only slightly distressed by her runny nose (it's a pain when eating). Otherwise, she's all smiles and sunshine and in the process of developing a robust immune system, and her runny noses now mean she will be one of the healthiest kids in preschool and kindergarten. Grandma's immune system is out of practice, but will catch up. I hope.

Anyway, I watched her for a couple of hours yesterday, and then today my daughter and I and Patient Zero spent a couple of hours looking at houses and went to lunch. They've decided they don't want to buy my house, and that's fine. They do need more space - Son-in-law is a musician, and really needs a music room/man cave. My house doesn't have that kind of space. They are many months out from buying but when I have nothing else booked, we'll go explore neighborhoods and debate floor plans - I'm previewing, she's contemplating areas they will focus on when they are ready to pull the trigger, and it is a wise use of a free afternoon all around, except my throat and head are both hurting, and I'm hoping to sleep off my latest case of Adorable Baby Cooties. When I picked her up today she greeted me with huge smiles and drool and snot, touched my face with her precious little germy fingers, and then sneezed and wiped her runny nose on my shirt, and gave me a sunny, toothless grin. I'm developing a robust immune system myself here. But not quite yet - my throat and head are both sending up minor intruder alerts.

Lest this sound like an indictment of day care - not at all. My other granddaughter has not gone to day care or started preschool yet, but has had her fair share of colds and such. Children cannot be raised in bubbles, and Miss D is just getting a lot of the usual childhood snot fests out of the way. She is sunny, cheerful, and already enjoys touring houses - her mom carried her around and showed her the big patio, the nice kitchen, the...oh, that's unfortunate, what were they trying to do with that? We saw some houses with real potential, in great neighborhoods. Only one had a challenging floor plan, the others were just begging for someone to love them.

Then we went to lunch and I ate meat for the first time in many weeks, and it wasn't a thrill and is still sitting in my stomach like a concrete block 7 hours later. I think I'm a vegetarian in my ripe old age.

And BTW to any real estate people who happen by - we are not looking at occupied houses, only REO properties and vacant short sales. I am not going to ask a family to clear out for a showing when they are a long way out from buying. I am thoughtful that way.