Pity Party, Table for 1...

Friday has come at last. The end to the longest week I've had thus far this year.
Maron woke up last Friday with a wee bit of a chest cough. I thought, "Uh-oh, this is bad. Then again, maybe a cough is all it is and Maron will hack something up and be done with it. Aaannd maybe monkeys will fly out of my arse." Sure enough, Saturday morning she had a low fever and a mightily runny nose to go along with what had become a wracking chest cough. Outstanding.

So then Maron was sick and Marida was not. I thought, ever so briefly, that I could keep the two children apart and thus negate the transferance of germs. But who was I kidding? Trying to keep two young siblings apart is like trying to keep hair out of the shower drain. Even if I could keep Maron in one spot for the duration of her illness, Marida is so enamored with her big sister that she'd follow her to the ends of the earth. So by Sunday Marida was sick. No fever, but a cough that rattles the windows and more snot than you could shake a stick at. You know how they say there's nothing sadder than a sad clown? WRONG! There is NOTHING sadder than a 9 month old trying like hell to cough up her cruddy little lungs. Outstanding.

Now you would think that caring for two sick children is twice as bad as caring for one, but when both children are small, one doesn't talk and the other doesn't know the words to describe how yucky she feels... Well, it's not twice as bad. It's more like five times as bad. Especially since they are not sick at the same level. While Maron was getting worse Marida was staying the same, and now that Maron is getting better Marida is getting worse. And all the while I am trying like hell to keep from getting sick myself. Ask me how successful I've been. Yeah, not so much. I've felt like ass for the past two days. Only I'm not sick in the 'wracking chest cough and snotty nose' kind of way (which would be a welcome relief right now). I'm sick in the 'stuffy, sinus-headache and plugged up ear effing with my equilibreum and making me likely to fall down the satirs' kind of way. Outstanding

So here I am on Friday afternoon. I feel like crap, my children feel like crap, and there is a laundry list of things that need to be done this weekend, including a shopping trip to Costco tomorrow (which I'll be doing without Steve's help since he has to go to work) and a birthday party on Sunday (which we will not be able to attend unless both children make a magical recovery by tomorrow evening). When I became a mother I accepted the whole 'full time job, no pay, no sick days, no vacation' thing. And I'm good with that the majority of the time. But it's during weeks like this one that I wish I could take a break from my job. Not a lengthy sabbatical or anything like that. Just a day or two where I have no responsibility. No children to care for, no chores, no to-do lists. A weekend like the kind I used to have, before I got married and had children and became a responsible adult. I know there's no point in wishing for that. And I know there's no point in whining either. But right now whining is all I've got, so... yeah. *sigh*