My house sounds like a TB ward. Every one of my four children has a hideous, hideous cold. The Bean’s the least effected and even she’s pretty run down—which is to say that she can only bounce for fifteen minutes at a time, rather than her normal forty-five minutes straight.
Max can barely open her eyes and The Rose’s been running a low fever off and on for days. She loves being sick, though, with the attendant pampering, so there’s that. Max got it first, followed in short order by The Rose. The Bean was healthy for two days, much to her dismay, as she watched her sisters being given medicine, which they desperately hate. I guess when you’re not quite five, being left out of even horrible stuff sucks.
And then there’s The Boy. He was handed a nasty cold about two weeks ago by friends who came over without telling us they were sick and don’t you just hate that? Yeah, that’s right, I’m talkin’ to you. You know who you are and you know I’ll never, ever forgive you for this. Until next time. Which there better not be. Even though we both know there will. But one of these times I’m gonna draw the line. I am. Oh sure, I know I’ve said that fourteen times before but one o' these days it’s gonna be true. Count on it. Probably.
Anyhoo, The Boy was hammered by that cold, barely sleeping for four days, just oozing everywhere. Horrible, horrible. But then he got over it, and surprisingly rapidly, actually, going from terrible to barely noticeable in the space of about thirty-six hours. And about two days after that his sisters started coming down with it. And then, of course, two days later, he woke up with signs of having caught a slightly mutated form from his sisters.
So Top Management made up the pull-out couch into a bed and the girls have been watching Magic School Bus. I’ve made myself scarce because I’ve got this thing about colds. I just hate them so very much. They make me angry. I’m angry when I’ve got one and I’m angry when someone else has one. I hate them. So much. Other sicknesses are different. When one of the girls has chicken pox or roseola or strep throat or whatever, I’m more than happy to wait on them hand and foot, or cuddle up with them for hours, reading stories or watching movies. But a cold? It’s best for all concerned if I just disappear, whether I’m the afflicted or simply a bystander. It brings out the worst in me, and considering the best in me isn’t all that great, that’s sayin’ somefin’.
Meanwhile, she and I are just waiting to get hit by this evil bug. I’ve been guzzling orange juice like a madman and have cut way, way back on licking doorknobs. Because what’s that saying? If you don’t got your health, you’ve got tons of snot? I think that’s how it goes. And that’s no good.
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