No burrito for you. One year.

I get it now.

I must have been doing it all wrong.
All this time I've thought that being completely incapacitated by illness was enough to maybe buy me 2 hours of rest, but I now know it takes a virus AND a bacterial infection to get your point across.

I have been SO sick.

So sick that I had to call my mom, in Oakland, Friday morning at 6:20 and beg her to take the day off of work and come home early to just help me SURVIVE.

I was envisioning being beckoned to pour bowls of Lucky Charms as I sat on the bathroom floor throwing up into the toilet. Tiny hands shoving sippie cups into my clammy hands asking for grape juice.

Of course she came.
She always does. Mamas are good for that.

The sickness started Thursday afternoon with a general feeling of blah, and went full blown by that evening as I sat drinking my Weight Watcher smoothie - Something I'm now afraid to ever drink again.

I was up all night.

I will spare you the details.
Let's just say that I sent the bathroom floor a friend request and it hit "accept."

Justin, Master of Sleep that he is, slept through the whole thing without moving, and when his alarm went off, he rolled over and stared at me with his annoyingly well-rested eyes and said,
"Are you OK?!"

Uh.
No.
I've been fighting back death all night.
I'm surprised you didn't hear the Grim Reaper tap tap tapping his scythe on the tile.
Didn't you feel the bed move every 15 minutes as I got out and then in and then out again?

No. I've definitely been better.

Justin was getting up that morning to go have his first orthodontist appointment.
He's getting braces finally.
Something he's wanted all his life. He was excited and springy. He wondered where his singing woodland animals were.
I wondered why he couldn't have showered in the dark and oh gosh - I couldn't handle the smell of his body wash.
I was willing him to leave faster with my mind powers.

He did leave, and thank goodness my mom showed up just in time as the girls were waking up.

I could hear them starting to stir in their beds through the baby monitor and I froze in fear of having to even TRY to lift my fevered head off the pillow.

Mom saved the day with ginger ale and toast.
(which Tessa and Chloe took turns licking before I got to)

The whole day passed in clips.

I remember Tessa carrying off the two liter ginger ale bottle like an ant at a picnic.
I remember telling her, "No. That's Daddy's toothbrush."
I remember Chloe coming in and asking for band aids and saying something about Tessa's knee while she pointed to her elbow.
I remember that the chiropractor called saying I'd missed my appointment.
I remember feeling worried when I saw Tessa eyeing the thermometer like she was forming some sort of plan.

Then I remember Justin calling and responding, "Are you OK?" when I answered in a weak voice.

Again. No. Remember the Reaper?

What is it with men and their inability to call into reference all the man colds and splinters and boo boos they've had at times when they're wondering why on earth a 102 fever means you don't feel like you can cook dinner?

I mean, do you even WANT someone cooking your dinner who's had their hands on, or within 2 inches of a toilet for the last 12 hours? Aren't places shut down for that?

Seriously, Regis Philbin could have been standing in my bedroom holding out a check for a million dollars yesterday and I wouldn't have had the strength to stand up and grab it.

I got myself into the doctor's office, though, to have her tell me that not only did I have the flu, but I had a UTI and, oh yeah, they wanted to get me in for an abdominal CT scan this week to rule out appendicitis.


Don't be jealous.

I rested the rest of the night -
Well - Rested and watched the Celebrity Apprentice I've had saved on the DVR where Meatloaf just about rips Gary Busey's head off.
Something worth prying my eyelids open for, let me tell you.

Gary Busey's ramblings were like medicine to me.

This morning, however, I learned that one single day is the allotted time for a mother to get over two sicknesses.

Which makes sense, I guess, since a HALF day is what you get if you have just one.

Motherhood Math.

The girls woke up and started screaming that so and so was in their bed or so and so scratched them with a leapster game and crazy ME, I just assumed that since everyone had been informed of my diagnosis, I'd be given a pass on being the peacemaker and the breakfast maker.

No.

Apparently all that sleeping the night before had made Justin, well,
tired -
or something.
He didn't even hear the girls.
Or he was ignoring it and pretending to sleep.....Reverting back to the days when they were newborns, and needed midnight feedings, I guess.

Finally I got up and dragged my stiff, achy body in there with a walk that looked like I'd just finished a three day trail ride on a horse made of roofing nails.

I changed a poopy diaper.
I answered enough preschooler questions to make up for the ones I'd missed the day before.

Then I went back into our room and threw open the shades on Justin before I layed back down in the bed.

He got up for work and went into the bathroom to shower.
In my mind he clicked his heels together, but that's probably just my imagination.

"Hey, Ker? Could you pack me a burrito for lunch?"

Surely, this question was a viral hallucination.

"What?"

"Can you pack a burrito or something for me to take for lunch?"

I wanted to tell him that the only thing he'd have packed was ice on his swollen black eye, but I didn't.

I packed the stupid burrito.

But on TOP of that burrito,
with my pale, shaky hands, I placed a napkin.
And on that napkin I drew a picture of me sticking my stomach virus infected tongue out at him.

Was this action the type of action that would be given the thumbs up by a marriage counselor or pastor? No. But sometimes you just have to go for it. Let your croaky self be heard in some small way.

Hope he enjoys his lunch, because there probably won't be any dinner again tonight.