Flu... mom's best hope for a vacation

About 4 days ago, I had the sniffles. By night, I was laid out on the couch and hubby picked up dinner. By morning, my 4-year old announced I had a fever and my 2-yr old said I looked sick. Shivering under the covers, I accepted their diagnosis, slowly climbed out of bed and crawled to the kitchen because, well, they still wanted some cereal. I poured cereal, made coffee, then crawled onto the couch and pulled on my hand-crocheted round afghan (my favorite).

For the next 3 days, I just laid there, shivering under the covers, every muscle in my body sore. I drank orange juice and water, napped whenever and for as long as I wanted, watched mindless TV, started about half a dozen crochet projects, and read a couple chapters of Chasing Sophea for bookclub. Hubby got the kids off to school, bought dinner each night, and sent them to bed. Grandpa came to chaffeur to tennis practice one night and Grandma came one day, folded the load of laundry that I managed to do 3 days before and fixed dinner. If only rum mixed well with Advil, it would've been really nice.

So this morning, as I awoke from my burrow on the couch, I decided, okay enough of this sick thing. I surveyed the house - laundry piled up, trail of baby powder thru the foyer, dishes piled in the sink, Valentine candy wrappers dropped in the hall Hansel & Gretel-style, the containers of carry-out in the fridge, bath towels on the floor, empty toilet paper rolls, and oh, yeah the stain where someone kicked over my coffee. Am I sure about this, maybe I still have a slight fever? I made a pot of coffee, started putting last night's dinner dishes in the sink, ran some dishwater, and put the recycling in the garage. Put toilet paper in the bathroom, mopped the floor, and put in a load of laundry. Washed the dishes, cleaned the counter, threw away too old leftovers. Took 3 Advil. Swept the foyer, watered my wilting plants, and poured Sprite on the coffee stain. Fixed a couple bowls of cereal for the little ones who were up. Went upstairs and took a shower, washed my hair and put on some new clothes! When I returned to my family they asked "are you better?" "Yes, I think I am" I answered, so naively walking into the trap. "What's for dinner?" "I'm out of jeans" "We're hungry" "Can we call K to come over and play?" "Can you sew on my Brownie patch?" "Where's the checkbook?" "Can you play cards with me?"

Well, I guess vacation's over. Welcome back!