You Are One Sick Mother

About 5 pm yesterday the smack-down happened; I was minding my own business when suddenly my throat decided it was time to set itself on fire. Hmmm, I thought to myself, I wonder if this is the result of my son sneezing directly in my face as I was flossing his teeth two days ago? Probably, I surmise, since the smell of his infected tonsils wasn't successful in knocking me out initially, I guess The Cold thought it would give it a try. So, I am sick. Does this day sound familiar?

-You feel The Cold creep over, tap on your shoulder, and ask if it can come and ruin your life for a while. You shake your head no and pretend that it isn't there, cackling crazily as it looks for ways to settle into your mucous membranes and lymph nodes. You continue on with your day, cooking, driving, meeting, cleaning, bustling, ignoring, overcoming, and when it's all done you convince yourself that you're just a little "worn down" from the busy day. You get into bed and say to yourself, "I'll feel better in the morning."

-During the night The Cold found the key you had hidden under the mat and took up residence, changing the interior design you had worked so diligently on (with your vitamins and exercise) into a raging mess of phlegm and bacteria, and laughing as he turned up the thermostat.

-Morning comes and you stagger out of bed, met by two equally snotty children (because of The Cold) who are bouncing around like excited electrons, because apparently The Cold has no hold on their ability to move, like he does on you. This makes The Cold THAT much more evil.

-You pour orange juice over their cereal and stumble over to the couch as they scream in disapproval. You need to go to the bathroom, but, it can wait as you mumble though a few phone calls to cancel, uh, your life...

-You know today is going to be a great day for the kids, full of TV, games, and junk food, and you don't care. You will do whatever it takes to stop them from walking...their feet on the carpet causes cranial pain beyond comprehension. You are out of cold meds, so you down 18 Children's Tylenol tablets. There's breakfast!

And then it starts:

MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM! I need MILK! Not juice!
MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM! He put glue in my hair!
MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM! Where is the remote!??
MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM! I broke the remote!
MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!

-Before you can blink it is lunch time. You haven't gone pee for fear your head will explode if you get up, but you arise anyway because kids are on your lap, bouncing mercilessly and breathing on you, which is like daggers in your eyes.

-Figuring food is merely secondary to survival (because you think so clearly while ill), you throw down some bread and lay peanut butter in a stripe (why is it white? you don't care) and sprinkle chocolate chips all over it, and zap it in the microwave. You don't remember putting the food on the table, or how you got to the bathroom, but thank goodness you did as you haven't peed in nineteen hours and you are convinced it is now coming out your nose. Oh no, that's just snot. But, lots of it.

-Cartoons are over and Jerry Springer comes on, and you figure one time is OK, since the remote is now broken and the TV is all the way across the room and thus out of reach. Husband calls to check on you.

"Hi hon!'

"nnnnnnnhhhhhhh"

"Uh, not feeling good, huh?"

"nnnnnnnhhgggggggggmmmmbbb"

"Kids ok?"

"nhhh?"

"Do you need me to come home?"

"Nnnnnnne hmmm hnnnh hfffff gggg!!!"

You are PRAYING that he understood that as, "YES IMMEDIATELY!" but instead he interprets the lack of vowels to say you are actually rebounding from the onslaught of disease as he says, "love you!" and hangs up. You think to yourself, oh, he is SO getting this Cold! I will snot on him as soon as he walks in the door!

-The room continues to spin as you lose consciousness from time to time, finding yourself sometimes in the kitchen making something with chocolate chips, breaking up fights, or sliding off the couch.

-You make it to 5pm and hubby comes home, finding piles of clothes in strange places, dishes all over the house, snot rags covering the couch and the kids running around yelling, "mom fed us chocolate chips and mayonaise for lunch! Dad, what is a 'babydaddy'?" Hubby looks at you and asks, "what's for dinner?"

-You throw the phone and a take out menu at his kneecap and crawl to the bathroom as your kids bound after you, asking where their glue went and if it's OK to put apples in the dryer.

-Somehow you manage to lock the door just as the kids start banging on it, screaming "MOOOOOOOOOM" for about 5 minutes, until hubby comes over and says, "you ok?"

"mmmmmmmmmmgnbgngggggggg"

"Ok...you want sweet-n-sour or cashew chicken?"

"mmmmmmmmmhmmmmmbbbngggg?"

"Ok, I'll order that."

-Prostrate on the floor, you see a magazine left there by hubby, you pick it up to read it, but decide that the floor is much more interesting.

-The scum and debris on the floor is making you feel worse, so you throw several different shampoo bottles at the light switch and somehow get it to turn off, but now you will have to clean up shampoo that has splattered all over the wall. No time to think about that while you are busy trying to breathe.

-The ringing of the doorbell brings you back to life and you move in a zombie-like state to the table and eat some take out. Your head feels like the inside of a bass drum and it is pounding so severely that you have to time your chewing to the pulsing in order to just bring your teeth together.

-Hubby finally gets that you are SICK because you only eat half of your food and you start to cry. He sees the wad of toilet paper stuck in your nostril and says, "maybe you should go to be-" and with that you fly up the stairs, forget your teeth, (all you ate was Tylenol anyway) and lock the door and fall into the bed. Yeah, tomorrow should be a better day...

** for a look at "the day in the life" of a working mom attacked by The Cold, check out Kearsie's day...lame...