Pip woke up with a tennis ball-sized lump on her neck.
I shook my hubby awake.
"I'm taking Pip to the Clinic.
Can you take care of the kids?
Are you aware enough to be in charge?"
"Huh?
Yeah...
What?
Oh... TV..., yeah."
(For the record, he isn't normally inept at childcare. He really was laid out with a fever and chills.)
Eyeing my sadly oblivious husband,
I had the same talk with 5 year-old Winnie.
"Honey, you're in charge while I take your sister to the doctor.
Can you make sure Sugar Snack, the baby and Daddy are safe?"
(Yeah, I know, I know! I abandoned my kids. I left them alone. with their dad.)
Three hours and an ER visit later, we returned home to
Winnie's gleeful:
"Daddy's throwing up!"
These are the sacred moments. Right?
They are sacred.
Even just for a laugh.
Especially when the lump looks to be nothing worse than strep throat,
which our entire family of six has, too.
And that's what brings me to the mystery of six.
Six people.
Six weeks of being sick.
Six toothbrushes we should have thrown out after we beat the first sickness.
How did I not know this before?
That's all I've got.
No phenomenal words on writing.
Just a fever and strep throat times six.
And pictures of what to do when every one's sick:
Make your own bouncy house.
Clear out the living room, cover with pillows and mattresses.
Add a baby gym to make a tunnel.
Cover with quilts.
Shazam!
Instant bounce.
8 comments:
Ohhhh Faith- hang in there- you wil survive and then this blog will help you look back and get a chuckle!
So sorry you guys had it so bad. Hang in there. I will continue to pray for you and your family.
Oh dear, oh dear. So sad to hear of your misfortune...times six.
Julia, you're right! I'm so glad to have the blog. Before blogging, entire months went forgotten. Lots of laughs await.
Cory, thanks so much!
Amy, our stress is nothing to actually WORKING in the ER. You are amazing.
Faith - sometimes your blogs make me remember my own stories, which I thought had faded into the mists created in my brain by constant mommy busy-ness. Coleman woke up with a lump the size of a baseball on his neck when he was barely 6 months old. The ER doctor told us it was a relatively common tumor that would probably fade by the time he was 5 or 6 years old. A brand new mommy, I immediately imagined taking him to Kindergarten like that and fending off all of the little monsters masquerading as children, protecting my own deformed angel! But things are rarely as bad as they appear. The "tumor" faded away with a month. Two years later, I gave birth to my own little monster, Brody, and he's the only one I've ever been required to fend off for Coleman's sake!
Jessica, I can't imagine having to go through that stress when Coleman was so little. I, too, imagined the twins' future kindie classmates as ogres, but they are such sweet five and six year olds. I am surprised to find that I love all of them, even the ones who jump off tables.
Sometimes we just have to go with the sick, such is life and I love these pictures, by the way. There's some kind of cozy chaos to them that matches family life just right.
Also, I didn't know one should throw toothbrushes away after being sick. Now I know.
Kjersten, chaos we have. in droves. But it's happy chaos - most of the time.
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