Sunday, September 20, 2009

Sick

Holy BALLS do I hate it when people in my family get sick.

The kids, I can deal with. Seriously. Bea puts on the usual six year old drama and gets some palliative care (ice packs, Tylenol, fluids, naps, extra Disney Channel) and she's fine. She also gets contact sick -- whenever anyone else is sick, so is she. I have very little tolerance for the princess routine regardless of her place on the homeostatic scale, and getting sick is usually no more than an excuse for getting extra attention and spoilage.

Little Elle on the other hand, hasn't had so much as a sniffle in the past six months. Seriously. Aside from a little cold and some teething pain/fever, she's been healthy as a horse since she was born.

I am not allowed to get sick. I get something that knocks me on my ass about once every 3-4 years. I take my Advil/Benadryl/Robitussin, take a hot shower and drink some tea, go to bed and die for about 12 hours, get up and I'm fine. I don't abide getting sick. I get pissy when people in my house are sick.

And then there's The Boy.

My normally lovely, wonderful husband is horrible to be around when he's sick. He won't take anything, and he won't do anything. He just sits, waiting to get better. He'll take baths, he'll take naps, but he won't do anything to actively cure himself. It's up to me to force fluids, to buy the home remedies, to make him take them, and to get him better.

The worst is when Bea and the Boy are sick at the same time. As is the case right now. Holy crap, but do they feed off each other! Drama, thy name is Thompson. Would you like some cheese with your whine?

I came home to find everyone still in their pajamas, everyone on the couch, the baby in yesterday's outfit, lazy and lethargic, and nothing done. I don't know what it is about this combination that makes me fly into high gear, but I do. Without fail. Every. Single. Time. I turned off the tee vee, took everyone's temperature, determined that my husband was warm (probably from laying around in his bathrobe all day, Bea was slightly warmer (99.3, probably the same, but a gentle diet and some Pedialyte and extra fluids for good measure) and Elle was clearly on the mend (100.5, but happy and playing, an improvement over 101.7 and lethargic last night).

I don't know what it is in the maternal DNA that doesn't abide rest and laziness when sick. Perhaps it's jealousy: the world doesn't stop when I'm sick, so why should it stop for them? Perhaps it's also a lack of understanding: I don't get sick, ever, so I can't relate to what it's like. I don't know what it's like to have allergies or have to take more than a multi-vitamin each day to live normally.

I am grateful and thankful that everyone seems to just have a touch of whatever's going around, that it's not worse, and that they are all on the mend. I'm also thankful that my girls seemed to have inherited my constitution, as neither of them have ever gotten more sick than a 48 hour virus or an ear infection.

But dammit, it still bothers me.

In other news: I either threw my best 800 since 2007 in the pool yesterday, or I shorted myself a lap. I think I shorted myself, but I was still happy with the result. I added a timed lap on the end, and still came out just a hair under 20 minutes. This was a huge improvement over Thursday, and I swam continuously, where on Thursday I had to take breaks. Holla!

In further news, we got this lovely little treat via Twitter earlier this week. All I have to say is... droooool...

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