We have run out of underwear.
Friday, November 13th, 2009I always say that Moms get sick after everyone else is healed; because moms have to take care of everyone else.
I have been proven wrong. My kids took care of me as a slept through H1N1.
During day three of my five day fever, I was splayed out on the chesterfield babbling incoherently. I had already sweated down a jean size and still felt as if I could boil soup in my ear drum.
I was a mess. I let the kids completely pamper me with glasses of water at the ready. They got a kick out of playing doctor and junior doctor, and preparing cereal for Papa’s dinner.
“I’m sorry, Mommy, I don’t know what you want.” Kiddo #1 had brought me a straw because I couldn’t sit up to drink. I was completely incapacitated. Gasping for air I was trying not to hack on them. “Mommy, I don’t know what Farm Tax Credit is.”
“What are you talking about, honey?”
“Farm tax credit, Mommy, you keep saying it.”
Who knows what other bits I blurted out? Did I give away the hiding place for the stash of solstice gifts?
By day four I could get off the chesterfield but I had to be coaxed by parental emergencies.
“Mommy! Come!” I bolted off the chesterfield and crashed into the wall. I had been having problems breathing and this simple movement collapsed me. “Mommy! It was an accident.”
I hadn’t heard the glass crash to the floor. “Is everyone okay?”
“Nobody’s bleeding. It’s okay. It was an accident.”
I had enough energy to pick the kids up out of the glass and vacuum the kitchen twice before I collapsed again.
“Mommy! Don’t worry, nobody’s hurt,” Twenty minutes later Kiddo #1 reported “it was an accident.”
“Maman, my hair!” The baby wailed. I didn’t care who had accidently put the gum in the baby’s hair and I didn’t waste time looking for the peanut butter to slide it out. “Get me the scissors.” And back to the chesterfield.
It is now day seven. I can breathe. I can keep my eyes open to focus on reading the kids a story. Read a story – not fake reading a story. I had spent almost a week fake reading to the baby as little fingers flipped pages and I imagined what trouble Clifford the Big Red Dog would get into next. “A then Clifford said…”.
“Mommy, … Clifford no talk.” Egad! Found out by a two-year-old.
After one full week of letting H1N1 have its way with me, I am on the mend … and just in time … the family has run out of clean underwear.