I know it seems like for-E-ver since I've posted; and it has been. Some are still sick and I'm beginning to feel like a bird in gilded cage. The door is open - but I can't fly out of this situation.
I'm going batty! No pun intended - well... maybe it is.
There has been so many germs and mucous flying around here, and I've bought so much medication that the house resembles a CVS Pharmacy minus the Depends. Give it a couple of years though, and you'll find those here as well. I mean, after giving birth to four kids, the bladder's gotta head south sometime!
I'm tired of playing doctor, pharmacist, Mother Teresa, Florence Nightingale, and the rest of the archtypes you lay on me through this process.
Last night I had nearly had enough. I was making dinner and each kid was taking their turns saying "MOM", like every stinking 10 seconds. It hadn't helped that I had forgotten to take my OWN medication yesterday - so crankiness on my part was being heated up as well as the homemade taquitos!
It didn't help that Nia is still uncharacteristically NASTY since she's been ill. My God, if that kid doesn't stop having tantrums every five minutes, or whenever I say "No", I'm gonna check my own self into a mental ward for a little R&R, cause frankly, I NEED IT!
Send me baskets of chocolate while I'm there, won't you? I'll give you the address to it later!
Should I really confess as to how MUCH chocolate and coffee I've been through this ordeal? No? Yes? Maybe we should just have a contest! Let's just say that a few more fat cells moved in during the process and my Miley Cirus skinny jeans are a little tighter today than usual.
But I made my white/dark chocolate, Macadamia/pecan, coconut cookies last night to make me feel better cause it's all about priorities, right?
So back to last night. The kids were calling me every 10 seconds, I'm feeling one of my favorite migraines creeping in on me, the hubs is coughing and sneezing to death suddenly, dinner is late, American Idol is about to come on, and my head begins to swell and spin.
"MOM! Help me with my fractions?"
"MOM! Put me on BuildaBear.com?"
"MOM! Where are my shoes?"
"MOM! Can I play Xbox before homework?"
"MOM! Why do I have to finish ALL my missing homework tonight?"
"MOM! I gotta pee - come to the bathroom with me!"
In the background, the hubs can be heard going:
**COUGH, COUGH, SNEEZE, SNEEZE, COUGH COUGH, BLOW, BLOW**
"MOM! Nia won't get off the computer!"
"MOM! I need your computer NOW!"
"MOM! Nia STILL won't get off the computer!"
"MOM! When's dinner?"
"MOM! When will dinner be dooOOOnnnne?"
"MOM! WHAT'S for dinner?"
"MOM! I wanna cookie before dinner!"
"MOM! I SAID, I wanna COOKIE before dinner!"
"MOOOOOOOMMMMMMM!"
My level of tolerance and patience through all of this has officially topped out and suddenly I scream - not yell, not fuss a bit - but literally scream for everyone to be quite and sit down cause four kids coming at me every 10 seconds has reached it's level to be remotely tolerable!
Toni stops jumping up and down like a Mexican Jumping Bean while listening to iTunes (cause I was that loud), Nia becomes an instant stone statue peering up at me with wide-eyed dismay, the twins just stop and stare.
Mommy has "lost it"!
Luckily, this doesn't happen too often, but when it does the kids know it's serious ca-ca. There is soon an orderly succession of children finding a seat to plant their derriere upon.
I stand up straight, throw my shoulders back and give that "air" of authority that I only wished really existed around here. I do have my dreams!
I methodically organize the kids so that each get involved in their own individual activities, which usually means forking over my own computer in the hopes of saving all of mankind from experiencing the levels of complete chaos currently occupying my home.
Nadia is still grumbling all the way to the "homework table", about the amount of makeup work I have demanded she complete before returning to school. Plus, I have given her a sheet in which her teachers have to sign and verify that she turned it in and/or is being graded.
And how old is this child?
Toni is on one computer with the iTunes still buzzing in her ears, Nia is on another computer with all her BuildABear buddies, and Julian is screeching suppressing his band tunes on his tenor sax in his room in hopes of gaining extra brownie points for time on Xbox Live tonight.
At least dinner is now being prepared is a somewhat noiseless environment.
That is until........
the hubs comes coughing and gagging into the kitchen with eyes swollen and drooping below his knees where his ever-growing belly should actually be positioned.
I see and hear it coming; Male Sickness Syndrome!
After being housebound for so long, I realize that it's gonna last a little bit longer than anticipated. Make no bones about it, Male Sickness Syndrome in not a myth! We women who have experienced this phenomenon know it well.
It now means that the month long illness that left Nia with the worse case of good-temper displacement will now be passed onto her father and the frequency on it turned up to Level 2000!
It has already started this morning upon is rising. I am no longer talking to a human being today; I am talking instead, to a body infested with icky bacteria and mucous that clogs any normal functioning brain cell left in his head. His ability to think/act rationally and calmly is replaced with a 6'2" green ogre of the worst making!
The man would eat his young for breakfast if allowed! It's THAT bad!
So as I look over at the door to my cage as it gently swings back and forth beckoning me to climb through its golden frame, I instead whip up a batch of miso soup and rice for the next in my household sick line.
As he slurps and slops his breakfast down, I reach over and pour another cup of Hazelnut Creme coffee and reach over to sneak one of my freshly baked cookies and think to myself:
"Chocolate! It's the breakfast of champions and worn-torn nursemaids!"
