another day
Posted on May 3, 2007
Filed Under kids, parenting, another dread disease |
Because y’all are really too kind and supportive to abandon, I’m back here at the keyboard typing away, ignoring my children and the stack of bills and the screens that are lined up in the basement awaiting the day when I will get around to washing windows and preparing for warm weather. So, yes, I blame you all for all the things I won’t get done today.
But seriously, I’ve got a bit of free time because now BOTH kids have fevers and aches and coughs and put themselves to bed without supper or, more importantly, dessert. (I know they are dangerously ill when they can’t even lift their little heads to ask for ice cream.)
And, maybe sympathetically or maybe for real, I am beginning to feel a tickle at the back of my throat, a slight headache coming on and the tips of my ears are burning.
G played with abandon all afternoon and came home dirty and exhausted to collapse in her bed. This is MOST unusual. The norm is for G to come home and talk incessantly while playing with the food on her plate and leave the table undernourished to have a bath wherein she will splash and play and refuse to get out until we threaten to take away her bedtime story and then she will leap out of the tub, all sopping wet, and run to her bedroom to pick out the book, dripping bathwater and soap suds down the hallway. She’ll spin and twirl and jiggle while we try to make a cursory pass with the toothbrush and then she’ll bounce on her bed while we read Bedtime for Frances for the one thousandth time. Tonight G went down silently, two hours before the sun.
And O has been sleeping since 4 o’clock. He’s passed out in his bed still wearing his Miami Dolphins shirt and filthy jeans. I didn’t even attempt to wake him for dinner or nightly ablutions. The kid’s too sick to speak much less brush. I have almost forgotten how the healthy version of O eats two helpings of dinner and always has room for dessert. His convalescent self has eaten next to nothing since Friday.
So I’m turning in, hoping that adequate rest will stave off this dread disease and anticipating that one or both children will be up in the night.
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9 Responses to “another day”
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Oh, I do not miss the days of sick, young children. Closer to the ground, they seem to pick up more of whatever is lying around. And perhaps the most amazing thing is how close they can get to deathly ill seemingly minutes before they “spin and twirl and jiggle”
We’ve had a really rough time lately with illness. I find myself constantly on guard, waiting for the next illness to make itself known. It’s a battle. And I mean that literally.
PS I hope O is looking better today. That’s a long time to be sick, poor thing. And I hope YOU don’t get this plague.
So my brother was discharged from the South Florida State Hospital after just over a year and half. We took him to an assisted living facility in Orlando. Senor Fuentes, his hospital case worker, thought this was a much better idea than an ALF in Hialeah. Through his thick, thick accent, Senor Fuentes hinted that an anglo paranoid schizophrenic vegan with hyper-coagulant blood might have some difficulties surviving on pork, rice and beans in facility where Spanish was the only language spoken fluently.
The folks up in Orlando were great, although at $1000 a week, one would naturally expect some pretense towards service. Now we sit and pray - as aethists pray - that he will “take” to his new surroundings.
My six year old son asked if his uncle was well enough to go to Disney. My thoughts turned to “It’s A Small World”, giant friendly rodents, and tinker-bell. Let’s give it some time, I said.
(As an aside, five hours in a car with a paranoid schizophrenic isn’t as fun as you might think.)
We now return to our regularly scheduled topic.
Anymouse, I’d take a day at home with sick children over that car ride any day. Glad he’s moved and safe and hopefully beginning a good thing, a well thing. Which reminds me that your poor mother is still very much having to mother her adult son. This scares me and makes me feel very, very tired for her.
Eek, I hope the kids are better soon and that you arrive in NYC healthy and ready to take on the town. I for one end up sick EVERY DAMN TIME I go there. Apparently I lost my immune system when I moved away 3 years ago.
ah. yes. glad you are back. the sickness thing sucks. it’s settling in here, too.
The problem with parenthood is that you never stop parenting some children…
To clarify the above comment… many of us have young children. We expect them to vomit on us, throw tantrums, beg us for money, etc. What we don’t expect is that they will throw tantrums, beg us for money and need our care for life.
My mother is faced with that. Her adult son is paranoid schizophrenic. He also suffers from an idiopathic blood disorder which has caused, at various times, deep vein leg clots and lung clots. So he has to take warfarin… aka Coumadin aka rat posion.
She probably didn’t expect to spend her “golden years” convincing her paranoid schizophrenic son to take rat-poison.
Anyway, most of us look at our young children and think of their unfettered potential. Some of us see unfettered potential with a chance of disaster. I’m not trying to downplay the daily frustrations of colds, diarhea, vomit, fevers, emotional lability, and the other “joys” of youngsters… I’m just had a rough week. And I’m scared shitless that my brother won’t tolerate his new living arrangements.
On a lighter note… my six-year old walked naked into the TV room where his parents and grand-parents were assembled. He turned his back to us, bent over to show us his bare rear and with utter seriousness asked… “did I wipe O.K.?” I hope our laughter didn’t scar him. And yes, he wiped fine.