When the Mom Gets Sick

When the mom get's sick, life doesn't stop. I have been sick all week with a bad cold. It's nothing serious, just a cold. But all I really want to do is SLEEP, so yesterday I was looking forward to putting Angela on the bus and crawling my aching, sniffling, itchy-eyed body back to bed.

But Angela had other plans.

When I told her it was time to get up she didn't move. This is highly unusual, as she LOVES going to school. Instead of popping out of bed like she normally does, she hollered, "Fine!...B****!"

I have to tell you Angela knows all the cuss words there are. (Thanks to her dad!) When she's in a bad mood (which seems to be all the time lately) she uses them constantly. On the advice of our behavioral specialists we're giving her ZERO attention for this. Do you know how hard it is to be in the middle of Target and have your child holler "B***" at you and do NOTHING ABOUT IT? It infuriates me, she knows this, and so she continues to do it. We've been doing the "zero attention for swearing" bit for MONTHS and it's useless. When I find something that works EVEN ONCE I'll let you know!

Back to yesterday morning.

So the kid is in bed, hollering swear words every 3 seconds just for the sake of having something to say. I am sitting at the kitchen table with the phone in my hands talking to her special ed teacher, "Angela won't be there today...She doesn't SEEM sick but we're going to the doctor anyway, because I want anticuss pills...Yes, I hope she's feeling better tomorrow too." I will not lie. I think I heard her teacher sigh in a "Oh what a relief" kind of way.

I dragged my sluggish body and Angela's swearing one to the doctor, where she tested positive for strep. Here I'd hoped that taking her tonsils out would have lessened this problem. Silly me. When we got home it was all I could do to make it to the couch, find a movie on cable for Angela to watch, and drift off into a cold formula induced sleep.

Angela, on the other hand, saw this as the ultimate opportunity to play doctor on me. She dragged out all her doctor paraphernalia, donned her Dr. Angela jacket and mask, and came at me. I was just hitting REM when my left eye open was pried open to look at them with her scope. "Yep! She awake Sophie!" she announced to her invisible nurse. I pulled the blanket over my head to ward off the attack, only to have her whack what she THOUGHT was my knee with her reflex hammer. "Angela, please go watch your movie and let Mom sleep. I bet I have ice cream here. Let me sleep for an hour and I'll get you some."

"Ok Mom! No problems!"

I hunkered down under my fleecie blanket and Angela threw her sleeping bag on top, tucking it T-I-G-H-T-L-Y under my chin to be sure it stayed there. I could feel the waves of exhaustion coming over me, and that heavy "I'm almost asleep" feeling when I heard the front door slam shut. I opened one eye....there's the TV, but no Angela in front of it. I listened, hoping to hear her clomping through the house. Instead, outside the back window I heard, "C'mom Dudley! Let's go for a walk!" We have a large pond in the back yard!

GOOD GRIEF!!!! CAN'T A MOM GET A NAP??????? The entire rest of the day went like this. When Dean came home he headed to the basement to call in his work orders. About and hour later I went to tell him something and found him out cold on the basement couch. Go figure....