sickly

Being sick this past week has been a slight nightmare.  The only thing that feels more helpless than having sick children is not being well enough to care for them.

I haven't had more than two seconds to have cohesive thoughts this week, but the couple that I have had have gone like this:

1. I have no idea how polygamist mothers, or mothers with more than 4 children stay sane or are able to care for all their children when they are sick.
2. I felt helpless and hopeless for the mothers who crossed the plains 150 years ago.  The sicknesses of their children and themselves that they were forced to try to overcome takes my breath away, when I think of how bone-grinding hard it is in the 21st century with every modern convenience.  I can truly say to those heroine ancestors who were forced to endure such torture, that I am not worthy.

My Mom came and picked up Garrett, who was feeling far too chipper for the rest of us moaners, and so we were free to veg in our sweaty sickliness without a hyper four year old begging us for attention.    This came just in time because Gavin was heading out of town for work.  

Since Wednesday Dalton, Shelby and I have left the couch only to pee, refill our drinks, and refill our Tylenol/Motrin dosages.  We have probably watched 12 movies.  Of them, Matrix (Dalton loved), Wizard of Oz (to get ready for Wicked next weekend, which I found far more annoying than I ever did when I watched it as a kid.  That lion...seriously...too much drama), far too many Scooby Doo's, Hugo (which we liked), some foreign kids film where a cat turns in to a girl but we only got through half of it because the kids got sick of my reading of the subtitles, and the Golden Compass which is now Shelby's favorite film on earth.  I must admit that I loved it too.  

Just when I think that one of us is getting better, here comes the fever again.  I can not count how much Motrin and Tylenol we have gone through, oh wait, I can, because I have had to write down every single dose so I didn't, in my sickness induced delirium, drug my kids to death.  

My kids have been scarred by my appearance.  A mother with red slits for eyes who walks like a gaunt zombie, I guess is not the most comforting image.  So yesterday I wore sunglasses in the home all day long.  The pink eye has been driving me nuts.  Garrett had it.  But Shelby and Dalton haven't caught it.  Until tonight, and now it looks like Dalton's gotten it.

We missed a week of summer camps for each of the kids, so there's a few hundred dollars down the drain.  

Tomorrow Gavin comes home and part of me wants to murder him for leaving us in the first place, while the other part of me wants to run to a cave and hide the second he comes home so that I can sleep while he cares for the kids.  Heaven help him that he doesn't get this bug, because it has been awful.

That reminds me that I need to go fill the humidifier for Dalton.  Poor kids.  So that is the end of my woe-is-me post.  Thank goodness for delivery pizza, OnDemand, and air conditioning.