Sick

When you have a fever and chills, the best place to be is on a sheepskin on top of a radiator. 

Last Sunday, in an attempt to entertain the kids, Chris took Bela ice fishing and I took Mae ice skating. Mae has a thing about ice skating. She begs for it. She cries and throws fits. She really loves to go ice skating. But the minute she gets on the ice she's good for about 1.25 turns around the rink and she is totally satisfied, ready to take off her skates and call it a day.

This time we went to Millennium Park, so after our 7 minutes on the ice we could at least have a snack near Lurie Garden and check out the bean. Kids' fascination with the giant "bean" is so charming. They go nuts there. Mae is no different. She loves to run while she watches her reflection, walk slowly up to the reflective surface with her hands outstretched, not quite sure when she'll actually make contact with her mirrored self. She did this over and over, and then a little boy tried to join her. "STOP!" the dad yelled. "Don't touch that bean, it's filthy. You'll get sick." I, of course, rolled my eyes and encouraged Mae to do everything but lick it, muttering under my breath "overprotective".

Flash forward 24 hours.

Since Monday at approximately 3:30 pm the females in my family have been horribly, horribly, sick. Lucky for Chris - the one and only male in our house--he seems to have escaped unscathed. Secretly I think this demonstrates his lack of dedication to the family unit, but I'll let him off the hook this once.

Patient zero is Mae Abigail "the bean" Strong. When I picked the girls up from school on Monday, I discovered Mae on the couch with a fever. She had woken from her nap in that state, and I quickly took her home, wondering if it were the nasty subway or perhaps the bean itself that started all this sickness. Her fever spiked at about 103 that night, and I slept with her because I thought it would be easier than having her - in her sick state - coming to me repeatedly in the night. So I wiped her nose and kept her hot water bottle hot and got her water to drink and cooled her forehead through the night.

Tuesday. I don't teach on Tuesdays so staying home with Mae was a no brainer. I had no way, however, to get Bela to and from school, so she stayed home as well. Now remember, this is February, and we are on a TV ban. Tuesday was a very, very long day. And to make matters worse, Bela spiked a fever that night. Now both girls were sick and I was calling around to find subs for my Wednesday classes.

Wednesday. We made a giant bed on the floor and listened to Shel Silverstein's audiobook readings of A Light in the Attic and Where the Sidewalk Ends no less than 8 times each all the way through. I pumped them full of ibuprofen and took them to JoAnn's for some emergency craft supplies. We were going to need something to get us through the rest of the day. And then we got home, and that is when the worst thing imaginable happened. I got a fever. 

Now, Mae often asks me things like: "When I'm a baby again can I drink from a bottle?" Or, "when I'm a baby again will I say goo-goo?" Some days I play along, but some days I choose to gently remind her that she will not be a baby again. "No one can turn into a baby again, Mae." 

But I have to admit that I lied. While my children have turned out to be quite the stoic invalids, their mother actually and factually turns into a baby again when she gets sick. 

I am the worst. The slightest fever sends me shivering for bed. Last night, as I was scanning lesson plans and desperately searching for subs once again for my Friday classes, I was actually in tears I was so miserable. Boo. Hoo. Anyway, you can imagine how things began to deteriorate in the Strong household.

Thursday. Bela didn't seem to have a fever and said she missed her friends at school. Me, wanting a day to convalesce at home with just Mae, urged Chris to drive her to school. Within one hour, however, her school called home. Her teacher described her as grey and little, and sleeping on a little sheepskin bed while all the kids played. Chris went to get her. Bela had 103. And like clockwork, Mae's fever spiked back up once more. As well as my own. 

Our JoAnn's purchase - color your own tattoos. 

Friday. We went to the doctor's this morning. I had 102. Bela had 101. Mae was back up to 103. I was preparing for the worst - maybe some foreign, rare virus. Swine flu. Something. What I got instead was the embarrassing news that we were all suffering from...are you ready? A cold. 

Needless to say, we are watching TV right now.  Go ahead and judge. I don't plan on moving from this couch until it's time to make dinner.

Maybe that overprotective Dad is on to something.