Quarantined

My husband left town yesterday around 3 p.m. The kids and I had a good evening together, but I checked Mr. Blue’s temperature because he seemed a little warm even after a bath, and wouldn’t you know it—he had a 100.3 fever. Nothing to really worry about, but enough to derail our plans for the next day.

Crap. Perfect timing.

I was a little morose this morning since he still had the fever when he woke up, and downright alarmed when he threw up a little after slugging down some milk—NOT THE DEATH VIRUS AGAIN! Haven’t we suffered enough? Plus his birthday party is on Saturday! But he was fine afterward (I took away the milk) and I THINK it might just be that he had drainage in his stomach and the sweet cereal and milk hit his tummy wrong. He hasn’t thrown up again, although anything’s possible, I realize. He’s been eating normally all day—which is to say, snacking on string cheese, grapes, and popcorn and demanding candy between every bite.

The fever’s still here, of course, which means we can’t do any of the things that give our day structure and get us out into the world to have contact with other people. In other words, the things that keep me sane.

I guess I’ll just have to be insane for the next few days.

It doesn’t make me proud to say this, but when my children are sick but not really sick, not sick enough to go to the doctor or to lie around motionless all the time, I feel sorry for myself. “Poor me,” I think to myself, “here I am stuck at home waiting hand and foot on a person whose only symptom is a fever and a tendency to yell nonsense syllables louder and louder when I don’t understand his demand, while I try to guess: ‘Juice? No? Blue? Blueberries? No? Books? What?’”

It makes me realize how much I depend on getting out of the house at least once a day to make raising children doable for me. “Stay at home mom”—whatever. If I actually stayed at home all day, every day, I’d…

I don’t want to think about what I’d do.

(This is one reason why I decided not to homeschool, by the way.)

Sometimes we do stay at home all day (although we usually at least run an errand or two) but that’s by choice. Right now, it’s not. And I don’t even have my husband or small group meeting tonight to look forward to at the end of the day.

That last sentence was very whiny. I realize that. And I’m leaving it in, in the interest of honesty.

I am all about the honesty, here at Hairline Fracture. I am sure you appreciate it. ("That's enough honesty for today, Alison," I can hear you saying.)

I’m not sure what the moral of the story is, except to say that I reminded myself firmly about single parents, working parents, and military families who routinely deal with this kind of thing without backup from a spouse. I can make it one week (really just two more days) with a sick child. We have a doctor’s appointment Friday for checkups, so if he’s still sick we can see what’s up. And—worst case scenario—if whatever-it-is gets worse, we could reschedule his birthday party for when he gets better; at least, since he’s only turning two, he won’t know the difference and we can celebrate another day. And believe me: celebrate we will.