Every new school year starts off the same. I send my kids out with new backpacks and lunch boxes and they return home with tons of germs that their new friends are so willing to share with them. Disinfectant is sprayed, windows are opened and hand sanitizer pops up in every room. But alas, even my germaphobic tenacity is no match for the back-to-school cold. By mid-September it has usually made its way around our household. Mama is always there with a bowl of chicken soup and a box of extra-soft tissues to nurse red, running noses back to health.
For some reason the plague upon our home always starts at 3 o’clock in the morning. It’s then that one of the kids will creep into my room, slink right past their sleeping and easily accessible father, and do an Olympic-worthy long jump over the laundry basket of clean unfolded clothes just to get to me. “Mom, I can’t sleep,” the 11-year-old will say (which all moms know is really big kid code for “I feel icky and need some TLC”). Without even a second thought I schlep my sleepy bones downstairs to get the junior acetaminophen, medicated vapor rub and a thermometer.
For the next few days I take off my taxi driver hat and don my candy striper uniform. My sick baby isn’t going anywhere. For 48 hours we are under house arrest. This judge has ordered two days of bed rest and extra vitamin C, which usually is all it takes to get a sick kid on the mend. But it never fails…just when I think life can get back to some sense of normal … I start to sneeze and feel achy.
What happens when mama gets sick? Probably the better question is what doesn’t happen when mama gets sick? I will tell you what doesn’t get done…laundry, cooking, dishes, shopping, homework – it’s an endless list.
Although being sick is annoying, part of me enjoys that the family falls apart without me. It makes me feel…needed! But there is a difference between feeling taken advantage of and needed. Perhaps that’s why I got miffed the other day when I came downstairs with my 102 fever to make my family dinner and saw them all sitting around the table laughing and enjoying pizza. “What are you doing up dear?” my husband asked a bit too sweetly. “I told you I got things under control.” To which my daughter added, “Yeah dad has the pizza shop on speed dial so we’re OK!” The smell of the greasy, cheesy goodness was just too much, so I retreated back to my room leaving the merry trio behind.
Two days later my daughter crawled up onto my bed to see how I was feeling. “Are you better mommy? Daddy’s great but he is not you. And I am getting kind of tired of eating peanut butter sandwiches!” I hugged her close and reassured her that peanut butter would not be on the menu that night.
I have to admit, I was feeling very self-important until I opened the door to the laundry room. “Dad said the Laundry Fairy didn’t want to catch your cold but she would be back when you got better,” my daughter explained. I shut the door carefully not wanting Mount Dirty Clothes to erupt and spew socks and underwear all over the house. Then I sashayed back to my bed and climbed in. I let out a forced cough and said to my daughter, “Go tell daddy that mommy says she hopes he has the Laundry Fairy on speed dial too!”
Sharon Fuentes is a regular contributor to Westchester Family and a mom who always pays dearly for getting sick.
