Whew. It’s over, that’s all I have to say. But it will happen again, it always does. I’m talking about the fallout after a holiday. Thanksgiving was wonderful, and it has taken us more than a week to recover. Now we’ve had our fun, we’ve had some germs, and we have overcome. Just in time to prepare for Christmas.
So, let me tell you a little bit about my week.
A virus came home, a stowaway in one child’s backpack along with his leftover lunch. He shared the virus with his sister. She shared it with me. No big deal… it was just a cold with a cough. It came, it went. But then it got the Three Musketeers, my littlest ones.
Bing, Bang, Boom.
Two stayed home from school all week, coughing like barking sea lions.
By the time Small One started coughing, I was pretty worn out. Poor thing. She sat on the couch on a makeshift throne, not wanting jello or tea or soup. Without a voice. And sad. She only wanted to be “On Mama”. I don’t get much done when a child is “On Mama”. Eventually, we pushed the couch and the love seat together, and all of us just flopped there with a pile of Christmas books and Kleenex. They looked at books, I snored and drooled. The rest of the house fell apart.
Sick kids seldom sleep at night. Neither do parents of sick kids. My house is a mess and we are tired. By the end of the week, everyone got cookies for breakfast.
Did I mention that the dog just had surgery? He had a lump on his eyelid that had grown to the size of a marble, and we didn’t want him to lose his eye. Right before Thanksgiving, he trotted into the vet’s office with his beloved tennis ball in his mouth, and had his surgery. When I picked him up that afternoon, he came home without his precious ball. We didn’t give him a new ball until we were sure his eye was healing. So he was without beloved ball until Friday.
Old dog + antibiotics = you better let Dog out when he wants out.
Dog went out a lot this week.
Late, late Friday night, all kids finally slept. Dog began to whimper in his sleep. He twitched and he moaned a bit. But he still was sleeping. What to do? Let him sleep… he must be having a dream. Twenty minutes later, Doug was wide awake, staring at the ceiling, and Dog was still whimpering and fussing in his sleep.
Doug began to worry about the whole Dog + Antibiotics = you better let dog out when he wants out equation.
So, in the wee hours of the morning, Doug stood at the door, waiting for Dog to come back. Waiting. Waiting. Dog had disappeared into the woods. Doug waited quietly for fifteen minutes, not wanting to wake anyone up by yelling at Dog to come back.
Then, he came. Start the Chariots of Fire soundtrack… Picture Dog running, slow motion, jubilant, and victorious, out of the woods. Back towards the house.
Ball in mouth.
He had found it in the woods, where he had inadvertently left it that afternoon. He was joyful.
He hadn’t needed his woodsy bathroom at all. Not a bit.
He had just been worried about his ball. Worried enough to have an anxious dream.
But now, Dog was filled with glee. With his happy, click-y toenails on the floor dance at 4 a.m., Small One woke up. Here we go again…
When I got up Saturday morning, there was a note on my kitchen table. It said this:
“NO WON WOTS T BE WES O SEK PRSEN”
Translation: “No one wants to be with a sick person”.
Poor Small One. She had gotten up and written that note in the night, when I was sleeping. Oh how that little girl can twist my heart up. She can spend all week “On Mama” if she wants to. We’ll bake more cookies, batches and batches of cookies, and she can have them every day for breakfast. Poor Sick Small One on the couch.
Some day soon, she won’t have this virus anymore. She will get her little voice back, and there will be no sibling chorus of barking sea lions on the living room couch. The dog will be well. The Kleenexes will be cleaned up.
Maybe just in time for Christmas.