Did you know that I’m a martyr? Because I am.
My five year old desperately wants to wear his ballet dance leggings today. After a lengthy and somewhat heated argument as to why I don’t think that is a good idea, he’s feeling fairly resigned about not getting to. A few minutes ago he was eating a little green jelly cup and asked me whether I was worried that he might spill that on his leggings and I concurred. I added that I was also concerned that he might run around and catch his leggings on something that would tear them. He nodded sagely, “Or I might catch on fire?”
Indeed.
Why am I having discussions about the potential perils that legging-clad five year olds face in the world at 11am on a Wednesday morning when I should be hunched over my computer screen scowling at code and he should be doing whatever it is he does at his preschool at 11am on Wednesday mornings? Because we are sick, that’s why. He seems perfectly fine outside of coughing up a lung every ten or so minutes but me, I woke up with the worst hangover I’ve ever had in my life and after a two hour nap I am fairly convinced that little tiny gnomes hid under my covers and beat on me with their gnome clubs the entire time I was sleeping. My whole body hurts. My eyelids hurt. My eyelashes hurt. My fingernails hurt.
And I’m so cold! During my nap I couldn’t move because while the areas of my bed touching my body were relatively warm, the rest of my bed was composed of a sheet of ice. And when I climbed out of bed to go to the bathroom I immediately realized that some little hooligan had reset our thermostat from its usually moderate 68 degrees to a very unpleasant -10 degrees. It could be my sickness-inspired delirium, but I’m fairly certain I saw icicles hanging from the toilet.
And now my five year old is back with more unreasonable demands, this time for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich because he’s hungry and it’s lunchtime. I managed to keep the whining out of my voice while asking if there was anything he could eat that didn’t require me getting out of bed, but neither of us could think of anything. So now I will go and brave sub-arctic conditions in my death-bed state because I am such a good mother.