Yesterday, the kids and I woke up with slight fevers and sore throats. We stayed inside and did chores in the effort to bore the virus to death.
In retrospect, this might have been the wrong strategy.
By evening, Jane—who is given to bouts of bronchitis—was doing her dreaded seal impression, I was trying to cough the tickle out of my throat, and Sunny, who is normally a coloratura soprano, was clearing her throat like Isaac Hayes.
I was caught up in edits and e-mails and went to bed a little later than was wise, only to be woken at 1:30am by Sunny, who wanted a drink of water. Since my husband had abandoned the various tweets, hoots whistles, and bear calls of my slumbering respiratory system for the couch, I did my motherly duty and stumbled into the kitchen to run cold water over my empty hand because I’d forgotten to pick up a cup.
After a hydrated Sunny was retucked into bed, I went back to my own pillow and wrapped myself and the cat into the quilt and the comforter. It was pure bliss.
Until 3:45am, when Jane pulled off my covers and, in a way that let me know she’d been trying to get my attention for several minutes, said, “Mom, I can’t sleep.”
In one of those masterful strokes of Perfect Parenting for which I am so well known, I whined, “That doesn’t mean I can’t—go back to bed.”
Oddly enough, this worked.
Two hours after that, my husband came back to bed and snuggled close, like my own personal heating pad . . . and my alarm went off.
I got up, stuck the thermometer in my ear,* looked at the readout and called in sick. Then I went back to bed, asked my husband to take the kids to school, and slept until ten.
When I woke up, both kids were in their footie pajamas watching old Hanna Barbara cartoons in the living room. I made peppermint tea, commandeered a corner of the sofa, and was soon enmeshed in the ongoing Perils of Penelope Pitstop, who is, in our family’s considered opinion, dumber than hair but fun to watch.
Jane is breathing with her entire body when she’s not trying to expel a lung, refused cheese toast and cocoa. and is taking a voluntary nap. Our parental alarms went off, and she has a pediatrician appointment in an hour.
Sunny has a fever and a cough, but no perceptible loss of energy—naturally. She’s drawing pictures and bouncing around to show them to everyone.
I myself am not entirely present on this plane of existence, but am holding down the fort, more or less—with the help of my MIL, who is in her element, with sick children to cater to, and Watson, who spent an hour trying to track down a copy of George of the Jungle though libraries, bookstores, and the four Best Buys within reasonable driving distance, because we all agreed that it was the perfect thing for a houseful of sick people to watch and none of us own it—while my husband takes a deserved pre-pediatrician nap.
Five minutes after he’s awake, I won’t be. So I thought I’d write this up and tell you why there won’t be a post today.
How’d I do?
______________________________
*I don’t know who invented the ear thermometer, but may great bucketfuls of good karma fall upon them for gifting us with something that has two buttons, a big digital readout, takes all of two seconds, and can be easily used by someone laboring under minimal sleep and coordination, even on the squirmiest kid, without risking physical or psychological trauma. I salute you, ma’am or sir.
Earful of Cider 