Sick

All of the children were sick this past week, even to the point of going to work with David and lying on the church sofa wrapped in blankets while he worked.  Of course, whenever the boy gets really ill it goes to his chest - and the dry cough he'd been nursing and couldn't shake for weeks turned into a very unpleasant sounding chest cold so off we went to the emergency room.  The good news is he is finally going to get tested for asthma, and they gave us inhalers to use while he gets better, the bad news is that he's still sick, poor thing, and of course being *only* five means that he can't take any cold medication.

It's weird, how you *not supposed* to take medicine when you're pregnant, or nursing (one or the other of which I have been for five years) or for the first six years of life - all some of the times when you really most need it.  Because you certainly can't explain to, say, a three year old how you can't make them feel better except with some Tylenol and a hot water bottle, and you can't help but glare at your husband when you have a cold and are nine gazillion months pregnant and he has the same cold and is swigging back the cough syrup.  You, on the other hand, get to live like a pioneer and lean over a bowl of steaming water.

Ah, well, at least the weather's nice.  Oh, no it isn't - it's snowing.  It has been snowing and melting and re-snowing for the past two days and every time I look out the window and see flakes falling a little part of me dies inside.  I still force everyone to go on brisk, reviving walks, however, because I'm a mean mother and believe in the power of fresh air.  I'm not saying they end well, or last any length of time, or work to get the crabbiness out of the little people around here, but I don't care; my mother walked me around when I was sick and well and my children will get the same treatment and hate it and then do it to their children.

And the laundry...no, but that will wait, I'm sure you'd like to breathe deeply and go find someone happier.