Home sick

The girls and I have been down for the count for nearly a week.  After an emergency visit to the doctor on Monday morning, which followed a night of Lily coughing and hacking her lungs onto the floor, we discovered that it was most likely Virginie who'd been carrying around a virus in her little sinus cavities who'd passed it on to all of us.  It now looked like an ear infection and wheezing for Virginie, full on cough, nasal congestion, and wheezing for Lily, and sore throat, sinusitis for me.  Joy.  And the weekend that it all developed, Didier was working a wedding at the hotel which meant hours and hours alone with the girls.


I am curious.  How is it that in the middle of the night, these two girls are so full of symptoms, coughing, wheezing, crying, calling my name, demanding hugs and tissues and kisses and trips to the bathroom, but come morning, once confirmation that they would not be going to school had been given, these two people are in total play mode?  I mean nudity, high heels, strollers with babies, My Little Ponies, puzzles, Strawberry Shortcake movie on loop, juice, snacks, play-ING.  Playing like it was a professional sport.  Sure there is the occasional cough or break for Mommy to use the aspirator but in general, these people are full on and all I want to do is lie down on the floor and sleep for 12 hours.  The floor.  I am not too choosy.  Don't even need a bed.


Times like this, Barbados, which has steadily grown on me, shows its serious lack of services.  Where the heck is the delivery?  And I mean of good food, not crap Pizza Man Doc.  To have to make food for two little kids and yourself when you feel slightly better than ass is difficult.  Add to it that my princesses don't eat very much and I have a home economics nightmare on my hands.  We had noodles.  Pasta. Homemade pizzas. Soup. Lots of liquids.  But I really wanted something from the Japanese restaurant I used to order from when I was sick. Yummy soups, dumplings, a tiny roll just because we'd ordered.

I'm not crazy though.  New York right now is a snow cone, cold and slushy with an ice coating on top and so cold it gives you brain freeze.  For all my missing home, I am surely not missing it right now.  Yeah, I want the delivery, the New York Times, corner stores, culture, but I definitely don't want the frigid temps and wind chill to whip into my bones while I stand in front of the window.  With the girls home from school, we went to Farley Hill and the East Coast to get salty air in their lungs.  We walked in the garden and had a picnic out back.  No point in trying to keep them in the house and certainly not in bed.  I'd need a straight jacket for each to do that anyway.  I do not want them to get other kids sick, but there is no rule that says that have to sit tied to the bed to get better.  It wouldn't work anyway and the running around passes the time quicker.

We're all taking our meds.  Getting lots of fluids.  And waiting.  The girls and I are home sick.  But these days, with that weather in the States, I have not been particularly homesick.  I guess there's a lesson here.   


(c) Copyright 2011.  City Mom in the Jungle.