So we’ve all been sick for close to a week. We quarantined ourselves to avoid spreading this nastiness to others, but not before a quick trip to have lunch with my mom last week. We tried to warn her that Nicolaus seemed to be getting a bit of a cold, but grandmothers have this instinctive thing where they try to sponge the baby’s germs off onto themselves. Kevin’s mom actually told us once “Well I’d rather me feel bad than him.”
Ummmm. Ooohkay. You know what? Go ahead and kiss him then.
My mom’s not much better. She says she “didn’t even think about it” when Nicolaus invented a game where he put her necklace in his mouth, chewed it, then giggled and shoved it into HER mouth. My uncle tried to point out the problem but she waved him away “Oh it’s fine, he’s not going to hurt it.” So yeah, she called the other day and her throat was feeling scratchy. Oops, sorry mom.
Anyway we keep waking up thinking wow, we feel SO much better today! And we get very excited and start planning all the cool things we’re going to do now that we’re all better. But then we stand up and start walking around and stuff and Oh. My. God. It was a trick. We’re not better at all.
During the last week, we’ve cut down all of our adult responsibilities to an absolute minimum. Food, water, sleep are the only things that matter. And of course taking turns making sure that the baby doesn’t die, which I’m not proud to say sometimes involves letting him watch television for three hours at a time and/or letting him play with a giant roll of garbage bags while we lay on the couch and cough.
Huh, “couch” and “cough” are almost the same word. Cool.
Anyway the house is four levels beyond messy right now. The mess has spilled out of our bedrooms, into the living room, all the way across the kitchen and into the TV room. How did this happen? How did we accumulate two years worth of dirty laundry and use every dish in the house in only a week?
The bathroom, I’m proud to say, looks pretty good. Early on in this adventure, my friend Jessica said to be sure and keep things clean so we don’t keep passing germs around. We tried, but one of the symptoms of this particular illness is that cleaning makes you feel weak and dizzy, so I decided to scale back on the cleanliness requirement. So the bathroom looks good, and Kevin has been doing as many dishes every day as he can.
Not much else to report. I’m not returning client’s phonecalls; I don’t have the energy. If I had promised you I’d mail you something (Kristen, Brandi, Leeann…) I promise I will, just as soon as I’m sure I’m not contagious. Whatever this is, you don’t want it.
Ooh and I’ve spent my downtime drawing some comic strips. I really hate drawing and I suck at it so it’s slow going, but I’m looking forward to seeing the finished product.
