In Sickness and Insanity

It has come to my bleary-eyed attention that I get pretty cranky when I'm tired.

And I get pretty tired when my kids are cranky.

And my kids get pretty cranky when they get sick.

If you paid any attention during algebra class you may have figured out that my kids are sick and cranky and I am right there along with them.

When my kids get sick, I take on this martyr role and generously tell G-d that I would do anything, anything, to be sick in their stead.

And then when my prayers are answered, and I get sick, I turn to Him indignantly and demand to know exactly why He allows mothers to get sick. Mothers. What purpose could there possibly be in that? Mothers should never get sick.

It seems my complaining has landed me in a heap of hot, smelly stuff. Cuz now Mommy and both of her girls are sick.

At. The. Same. Time.

(The Man of this house would probably suggest that he is too big and strong to get sick but us girls are pretty sure he's been spared only because he spends most of the day at work, far away from our germs.)

We are a sneezy, coughy, wailing mess. Tissues have piled up around the house like house plants and my counters are littered with every natural and non-natural medication that exists. I have reached out to family and friends to collect every weird superstitious magical healing spell that has every been used. I have rubbed Vicks on size 28 feet and spread chopped onions around the house like potpourri (spoiler alert: real potpourri has suddenly become desirable).  I have locked myself in the bathroom with tired, crying children, turned the shower to blistering and nearly passed out in its steam. I have tried multiple types of humidifiers, shoved vitamin-filled fruits and vegetables down unwilling, sore throats and mixed up soups with the vengeance of a mother on her very last thread of sanity.

For all my work, I was blessed with the green light from my doctor that my big girl was well enough to go to school. Coughing, I was informed, might stick around all winter. But the virus in her itty bitty body is all gone. Her lungs have become exhausted of opening on their own, what with all the coughing, but I am more than happy to visit her classroom daily to spray magical albuterol in her mouth. Anything but keeping her home any longer.

Now there is just me and the baby. The 2.5 year old toddler that I insist on calling "baby" because I think it will make her tame and docile. My dedicated regiment of herbs and meds has graciously gotten her to the point where she well enough to make trouble, but still too sick to sleep sweetly.

So raise your Tylenol glasses with me and pray for the deliverance of sanity to mothers everywhere.

Chee -- hachew!---rs.