Picture it...
The baby is asleep in her car seat (because you don't dare wake a sleeping baby!), you've got one boob in the vice grip of your Lansinoh pump (because you refuse to wake up the sleeping baby) and from behind your closed door you hear competing coughs like an orchestra playing an ugly song called, "Your week in hell."
The 6th grader (the same one who cried like an angry baby when, out of caution yesterday, you made him stay home, and has turned around an hour into school today and called to have you pick him up) is currently leading the piece. You also hear the kindergartener/1st grader (Its complicated. Don't ask.) hacking along with his brother from his own respective sick bed. And then you hear the tot. The one who, on a good, non-sick day is valued at the cost of 10 toddlers and 2 obnoxious teenagers, is signing himself to sleep in his crib. Or is he signing himself awake? I suppose that bit is irrelevant. Between his melodious stanzas, he lends back up to the symphonic noise his brothers in the room next door are making. Only the erupting teeth have made his coughs more goopy.
You sniffle, and cough. But only the kind of cough to clear your throat... Certainly not the tickle cough. And definitely not a hacking cough. Your agenda says you are far too busy to pencil in a cold. You may have time the other side of never. But not this week.
The baby is asleep in her car seat (because you don't dare wake a sleeping baby!), you've got one boob in the vice grip of your Lansinoh pump (because you refuse to wake up the sleeping baby) and from behind your closed door you hear competing coughs like an orchestra playing an ugly song called, "Your week in hell."
The 6th grader (the same one who cried like an angry baby when, out of caution yesterday, you made him stay home, and has turned around an hour into school today and called to have you pick him up) is currently leading the piece. You also hear the kindergartener/1st grader (Its complicated. Don't ask.) hacking along with his brother from his own respective sick bed. And then you hear the tot. The one who, on a good, non-sick day is valued at the cost of 10 toddlers and 2 obnoxious teenagers, is signing himself to sleep in his crib. Or is he signing himself awake? I suppose that bit is irrelevant. Between his melodious stanzas, he lends back up to the symphonic noise his brothers in the room next door are making. Only the erupting teeth have made his coughs more goopy.
You sniffle, and cough. But only the kind of cough to clear your throat... Certainly not the tickle cough. And definitely not a hacking cough. Your agenda says you are far too busy to pencil in a cold. You may have time the other side of never. But not this week.
The baby stirs. Of course she does...because you just emptied one boob of half of her lunch, which she will absolutely not take from a bottle. She couldn't have woken before the pain, or before the leak was sprung. She is your daughter after all, so naturally she would do things according to her own good timing. So be it. It's a left side buffet this afternoon. Sorry kiddo, NMP. That's a texty acronym for, "Not my problem." (I just came up with that. It's not a thing yet, but it will be.) Except that it is my problem, of course, because I'm the mom, and I am responsible, and do the things and grow and nurture the small humans.
You disengage the vice cone, tuck away and adjust the wardrobe. So far, that now fussing, hungry baby and your husband are the only ones not coming down with this crud that you so hoped your family would avoid. And you, of course. You don't have time to be sick.
You disengage the vice cone, tuck away and adjust the wardrobe. So far, that now fussing, hungry baby and your husband are the only ones not coming down with this crud that you so hoped your family would avoid. And you, of course. You don't have time to be sick.
You kick back in the recliner to nurse the baby, hoping she gets her fill from the one side, now that the other waits on the counter for you to bag and tag it. You shift to burp her, where she promptly cozies up and falls asleep. "Perfect." You naively think to yourself. "Now maybe I can start on that endless list of things to do, starting with those barking seals that took over the kids' rooms." Just then, the husband and older middle child walk in the door. They make up 2 of the 3 who aren't yet sick. The startle reflex works and reflexes that sleeping baby awake. "Perfect." You think to yourself, less enthusiastically than before. You cough again. It was dust this time. Your husband is surprised the tot is still awake. He agrees to go retrieve the thrown binky, the bedding, and the stuffed toys that have become pawns in the war against bedtimes being waged by the tiny, wordless dictator. When he returns having won the battle (but not the war), he sweetly asks if you need anything. He's always doing stuff like that. Your to-do list flashes behind your eyes, but you don't ask for anything. "Ok, I think I'm gonna go take a bath then." says the burly man in front of you. You cough. Probably blood this time, from biting your tongue. You make no complaints about his plan, and in return he offers up the steam from his hot bath to you and the baby, should you choose to come keep him company while he relaxes, "It would probably do you some good, with that cough." You thank him, without spitting nails...or your mentally chewed up to-do list, and send him on his way.
The orchestra is on to a new tune. Same baritone instruments. A few minutes later you're sitting in the bathroom breathing in the steam from the hot bath that's just been run, along with the remnants of the essential oils you've been dumping into the shower by the bucket full for the past 4 days for those barking, hacking coughs that have taken over your family, while you daydream of disinfecting every light switch, knob, handle, toy, mouth and hand in the house. He did sweetly offer that steam to you, so of course you'd take it. You cough again. Dammit.
While you continue daydreaming of a natural form of Lysol that will disinfect all the things and the people, without all the nasty ingredients, you are reminded to be thankful. Thankful your bathtub-loving husband is home today, and feeling well. Thankful for his sweet, generous gestures. Thankful he came home early yesterday to help with the toddler snot you were swimming in, thankful it's "just" a cold (for all it's obnoxious timing and symptoms), thankful you were able to get the vitamins and medicines and things you all needed.... Well, they all needed...You aren't sick. You may feel like last week (which was a doozie of a week!) oozed into this week with a really unfair sneakiness, like you couldn't catch your breath before you were dragged back under into the underness of the beginning of this week.You may feel like it should be 5 o'clock Friday night instead of 2 o'clock Monday afternoon. But you're thankful. Very thankful.
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