Days Like This

I've been robbed....of half my weekend!

I'm on day four of some evil virus. I thought I had a residual of whatever evil virus Jake had last weekend-- a 102+ degree fever and body aches. On Thursday, I was full of hubris because I only had a little congestion and a scratchy throat. "I never get full-blown sick. It's my special mommy power." I bragged to someone at work.

Saturday morning, I felt a little crummy but not too bad. "The best way to fight a virus and boost immunity is to go for a run. It's the best medicine!" So, with the mild virus, I ran 5 mile intervals at 7:30 minute pace. I felt so bad ass. "Ha, see. I'm not really sick!"

I actually DID feel much better after my run. So much so, that I joined my husband and friend at a local brewfest. Literally, a half mile walk from our house. Sometimes, cool things do happen in Bremerton (Sir Mix A lot coined the phrase "Bremelo" to refer to large and unattractive women who live in my city...my friend and I consider ourselves to be "Bremelite," the upper echelon of the Bremelos.). I cautiously limited my beer intake to four samples.

Drinking in the streets....legally!

 

 

Today is a different story. Hear that sound? That's the sound of me eating my arrogant words! The sickness has descended upon me in full force. But, you know, a mother is not allowed to have a sick day. And for that, today very much sucked.

Jacob woke up at 12:30 am last night. I found him puking his guts out onto his bed. A bed that had fresh sheets on it for the first time in days after he peed his bed earlier this week (we've been SO busy that neither of us had time to simply do a load of laundry this week!). So, Murphy's Law. Yeah, we're well acquainted. Ryan, of course, woke up and began to scream. We moved Jacob to the couch and gave him a puke bucket and finally got the kids to bed much later.

Both kids woke up crying again at 6:30 a.m. Jacob had peed the couch despite the fact that he was wearing a pull-up (happens at least three time a week). Oh. My. God. His bed wetting is getting ridiculous.

Ryan was absolutely crabby all day, despite two long naps. He woke up from each nap even crabbier than when he went down. My patience was tested to the limit, and definitely snapped on several occasions. Jacob was also miserable. He kept demanding food because he was starving. I had to keep denying him food until I knew he could stomach some saltines. Even though I was feverish and suffering from general malaise and a horrible low back ache (couldn't even lift the wet clothes into the dryer without extreme pain!), I had so much to do. Lunches for the week. Laundry. Dinner for the week. Caring for the kids. Tidying up the shitstorm of our house. Holding a crabby, whinny Ryan while doing all the above.

I tried to rest on my bed once and both kids followed me into the room. Jacob kept tossing and turning next to me and fighting with Ryan. Ryan kept throwing things at both of our faces, falling off the bed, and bonking me in the face. I quickly gave up on a nap.

Somehow I was able to make all the lunches for the week (variations of chicken meatballs and quinoa tabbouleh/quinoa salad) and dinner (grilled chicken with lemon-oregano sauce), without sneezing on everything or collapsing from feverishness and fog-brain. I did sneeze onto one chicken breast, which I promptly rinsed and baked the heck out of. I will be sure to eat that special one.

Ryan was getting so restless in the house that I took him for a quick romp outside, even though I felt like Death's cousin. Ryan enjoyed it.. for ten minutes and then he got cranky again. He kicked. He threw. He lost his ball in the bushes.

This is the lawn that my husband has spent the past ten months on. Here is the before/after. It used to be very lumpy, uneven, and very unpleasant.

I was so happy to finally see a child running carefree across the lawn! Once we put up a fence, it will be even more inviting (and to hide our neighbor's horrific half-assed attempt at a fence, to her credit, she is a 70 year old woman who still works and likely never acquired any carpentry skills- we've offered to help with her fence...she never accepted...).

Ryan is so tiny, it makes our yard look huge.

Later, as I was doing a very pathetic attempt to tidy-up, I found Ryan like this:

 

An entire box of baking soda. All over the floor. When I found him, he was patting it happily, as if it was sand, throwing fistfuls into my running shoes, and tossing more fistfuls into the air, like white powder bombs. That was fun. To clean. And just an hour earlier, he dropped one of our favorite mason jar glasses, shattering it all over the floor.

The entire day, my husband was busy doing outside chores around the house. Thank goodness someone does them! And despite all of our hardwork (however feeble my own attempts were), we still have a dirtier house now than when we awoke this morning. There are more dishes in the sink than there were when I went to bed (even though I did two loads by HAND). There are two loads of laundry that need to be folded. And my house looks like a warzone.

How does this happen?!

But at least my kids are sleeping peacefully and I am FINALLY horizontal on my bed in the fetal position, being sick and miserable in peace. As crummy as I feel, I kind of like having a fever, as long as I don't have any other symptoms. I hate all other kinds of sickness, but a fever, I can totally do. It gives me an excuse to wrap up in blankets, feel completely swaddled in internal heat (I'm always cold!), and put my feet up and watch TV/read a book. However, I'm finding that now I have kids, this is never possible. Especially on days like this. The total exhaustion and muscle soreness also reminds me of that awesome feeling I would get after a good cross country race. Where your body is so drained that you have absolutely nothing left to give. The feeling itself kind of sucks, but the familiarity and the muscle memory that feeling brings is kind of comforting, in a weird way.

And now I get to think about returning to work tomorrow to finish something with an important and impending deadline.