Feel her forehead, take temperature, stay home, make soup, make tea, try lemon, try honey, try every old wives’ tale, call doctor, call school, cancel babysitter, stay home while hubby goes to awards dinner, take temperature, start medicine, cancel another day, drag her to the post office, and so forth, no change in sight, rub her back, be patient, be tender, ask how long can this go on, cancel four days of everything, make that five days, make muffins while she curls up on the kitchen floor, call the doctor again, clinch jaw, husband says I’ll take her this time, I’ll cancel my meeting, I say no I’ll go again I just don’t know how to get her better in time for your trip to see your folks this weekend, wrap presents for hubby’s family, lose temper, lose faith, lose the whole week, shout at daughter while she signs gift cards, tremble, call teacher, she says be sure she stays home until she’s well, accomplish not one lick of work or anything I want, go to doctor again, get the tests, get the shrug, get the look that says, it’s just a virus.
Feel the familiar tickle in the back of your throat.
Yikes!
It sounds like a bad one.
I’m sorry for Georgia and you both.
How do you manage to maintain your wit and humor? I think I might just be pouting and refusing to write anything at all.
Hoping the tickle is just a tickle and nothing more.
Comment by bella — December 13, 2007 @ 11:30 pm
Ha! As if you don’t know! I maintain myself by going on your blog at the precise instant that you were here. Better already.
Comment by Karen — December 13, 2007 @ 11:38 pm
We don’t ever stop, even if we happen to remember that our care-giving is likely to give us the same illness, do we? Guess that’s what makes us moms. It’s enough. 😉
Comment by RocketMom — December 13, 2007 @ 11:52 pm
Well, so glad I’m not the only one who reacts this way to illnesses. Not glad to know that it won’t get easier once they can communicate.
Sorry to see you, Georgia and Mr. Momma Zen suffer this week. Doesn’t it always happen at the worst times? LOL — don’t answer that. : )
Sending you love and best wishes from my kitchen to yours (Oh, wait … too much Paula Deen lately.) Yum. Muffins …
Comment by Shawn — December 14, 2007 @ 1:51 am
You sent me much appreciated sympathy when I was low … here’s some back. Stupid super germs anyway. Lots of water, lots of rest, soup. Someday, when your a grandma, your little girl will understand motherhood and love you even more.
Comment by Mrs. B. Roth — December 14, 2007 @ 2:14 am
I know the last thing you want is a recommendation, plus you probably know this already,BUT, I have been hearing from a lot of people lately that Osteopathy can really help for ear infections.
It will end, you are over the hump. Poor munchkin, she probably doesn’t feel as bad as you think she feels. It is so hard to watch them be sick…
Comment by Mika — December 14, 2007 @ 3:05 am
I so live in your house. But this week it wasn’t a lovely darling daughter, it was a large babyish husband who is coughing up a lung as we speak and has a horrible sore throat.
Comment by Kristi O — December 14, 2007 @ 5:57 am
Ugh. Right there with you.
Comment by Jena Strong — December 14, 2007 @ 1:34 pm
Oh Karen, this sounds yukky. Have you ever tried Zicam? It works wonders for me in fending off those insidious germs. That you’ve had this kind of week and still took the time to be the most amazing woman and help me so much is beyond belief. You are my hero.
Feel better, all of you.
Comment by Lisa — December 14, 2007 @ 1:36 pm
Your patience is inspiring.
Comment by tracy at zenhousewife dot com — December 14, 2007 @ 2:40 pm
It sounds like you need a little mothering yourself.
Even if you don’t get any practical help, I hope the supportive comments will feel a little like Mom saying, “There, there,” while holding out a glass of milk and a plate of your favorite cookies.
Comment by Kathryn — December 14, 2007 @ 2:41 pm
Get well. Stay well. Of course, we’ll all go around this bend again and again, but the warm wishes are there for you!
Comment by marta — December 14, 2007 @ 3:58 pm
We call it the V-word in our house and it’s a new one every week.
{{{{hugs}}}} to all of you & wishes for a better day tomorrow.
Comment by Shannon — December 14, 2007 @ 7:01 pm
I am reading you book now. It’s life changing. Thank you. I’m trying to be that change that I want to see. I already feel lightness in heart.
I’ve for a while now been a Pagan UU and my new local church’s minister has Zen/ buddhist tendancies and somehow it’s been speaking to me. I was standing in the “religions” section of the bookstore looking for something to ground me and I saw your book.
Thank you.
And by the way- this entry- this is the same kid of week we are having right now. House of sick we call it here. And thankfully your words have let me just be in the moment of comforting here and there and trying to stop attending to *just my sick needs*.
Like I said, life changing.
thanks
Vanessa
Comment by Anonymous — December 14, 2007 @ 8:20 pm
Everyone, friends new and old, I am overwhelmed by your wishes and hope you can see yourselves as pure kindness and wisdom. For the record, when you get to be my age and have to go for your annual mammogram come hell or high water, when you have a week like this where you finally just load the sick wee one in the car to go to the appt. with you, when they tell you that by law a child of 8 can neither wait in the waiting room nor go into the exam room with you, and they cannot reschedule you for a month, when you stalk off to the car and your baby says, Mommy did I make you angry, you just wake up where you are and realize that doing nothing is just the ticket, and that the ticket has been flapping in your clinched fist all along.
Love and blessings to all of you. None of us is in this alone, can you see?
Comment by Karen — December 14, 2007 @ 9:51 pm
mmmm…sending healing wishes to you and your precious baby girl.
be gentle.
Comment by Boho Girl — December 15, 2007 @ 11:14 pm
Oh my God. You’ve been spying on my life, yes??!
Hope she’s all well now (see you posted this a while ago).
New to your blog btw, I love it!!! What a writer you are!!! Magnificent!
Comment by Girl About Town — January 8, 2008 @ 10:34 am