Category Archives: Illnesses

No matter what, you probably did not consume sour milk.

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It’s been a strange week.  If you were to run an ultraviolet light over our house, doubtless there would be an offensive amount of germs and viruses squirming on the surfaces.  I myself came down with a weird 24 hour virus characterized by a high fever and narcolepsy.  After sleeping a lot I felt better.  Then Jake was up in the night vomiting.  There’s nothing quite like the night time vomit.  It puts you on edge the whole night, just waiting for the next episode.  The slightest cough or movement jolts you out of bed.  Then there’s the cleanup.  You strip the bed, you change the pajamas, you wipe down the bathroom, but since it’s the middle of the night and you are a zombie, and also you are comforting a very upset vomiting person, you tend to miss a lot of things that come to view in the harsh morning light.  Ew.  So I have been spending the day in an exhausted cleaning haze, except when I actually lay down on the bed I was remaking and fell asleep.  I woke up with Mark holding a Lego masterpiece right up to my face, talking about it in great deal.  I think he actually thought I was awake the whole time and was too amazed by his Lego skills to answer.
It was a pretty good Lego sculpture, after all.
Because of the vomiting, we decided to cancel our Thanksgiving trip which makes me a bit sad – I was looking forward to fresh grapes and apples – but also a bit relieved because frankly, I am just too tired to spend eighteen hours in the car this weekend.  I’m also a little confused, because I have no idea what to do for Thanksgiving dinner.  I mean, I’m not about to make a turkey or a pie.  But will the kids feel deprived?  Will my husband be deprived?  Should we just go out for dinner?  The pressure is on.  I did buy a butternut squash yesterday.  Maybe I could festively make some soup?
As I write this, Jake asked if we COULD have turkey, even if we are not going to Grandma’s for dinner.  Maybe, he said, we could go catch one.  Mark then joined the conversation by asking if turkeys available at grocery stores are already dead, or do you have to kill them yourselves?  I’m guessing soup might be a disappointment for them.
Further in the chronicles of Things I Would Rather Not Have Happened this week, I attempted, at my husband’s urging, to Keep Up My Strength by eating while sick.  One morning I poured skim milk on my cereal and started eating.  It tasted terrible.  “Everything tastes terrible when you’re sick” my husband admonished, “You just have to eat it and Keep Up Your Strength.”  So I did.  I felt kind of gross, and later I was mixing muffin batter and opened the skim milk.  Although the best before date was days away, it was completely sour.  I consumed sour milk for breakfast while sick. 
It’s been quite the week, but it’s Friday, it’s the long weekend, and with any luck we are all on the mend.  Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  I am thankful to have you all in my life.

Feed a Cold

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One of the first things that happens to me when I am not feeling well is I lose my appetite.  The less I eat the worse I feel, and then the less I feel like eating, so it’s a weird downward spiral.  This morning I woke up feeling worse than ever, and after a walk with Mark and the dog that seemed to be the death of me, I realized I was kind of hungry.  I wanted Kraft Dinner.  I haven’t eaten Kraft Dinner in many years, and obviously we didn’t have any in the house, but seriously, I would have performed any number of indecent acts for a bowl of KD.  Finally I gave up the ghost and realized that an acceptable substitute would be a grilled cheese sandwich, given that I had bread and cheese in the fridge, and after that I pretty much mowed my way through the kitchen.  I found things I didn’t even really know we had – Hey!  Tortilla chips!  Wow!  Cookies and cream ice cream! – and after that nutritional burst I felt immediately well and strong.  I marvelled at this, thinking that maybe I had just invented the world’s greatest cold remedy – eating – but then I remembered the old adage “Feed a cold” and felt startlingly unoriginal.
I kept saying to my husband, “I can’t believe how great I feel, from eating!” over and over.  “Really.” he said, then left to go golfing, but not before snapping this picture
I thought maybe I would have a nap, something I never do, and in the end it never happened.  Jake, who was also not feeling well, decided he was tired and wanted to lay on the couch with me, and then he proceeded to effusively hug me every couple of minutes.  You can’t buy that kind of attention.  Unfortunately he also kept accidentally elbowing me in the face and pulling my hair, so it was less than relaxing.  Mark just kept up a steady stream of one-sided conversation, before going to draw me a couple dozen pictures to cheer me up – which they did, of course – but he kept bringing them and shoving them right in my face to show me.  I enjoyed about five minutes of silence before Mark annouced that he had brought up all the painting supplies but not to worry, he could prepare the palette all by himself.  Nothing gets a person off the couch faster than the thought of a six year old painting unsupervised.
The very unfortunate part of today was that it was unseasonably warm, possibly one of the best days of the year, and other than my strenuous two block walk, I spent it inside.  However, now that I have abandoned my diet of cinnamon tea, cereal, and Sudafed for a heartier one, I really am on the mend. 
Since I am stuck on the couch I will live vicariously through you all.  What are you doing on this lovely weekend?

Back to the germ factory.

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Does anyone else have the typical back-to-school cold? School germs work fast. No one in our house has been sick for at least five months, but a couple weeks into September sees us down with a cold. Although it is a pretty minor cold – the boys have had it and recovered quickly – it’s still annoying. I came down with a headache on Tuesday morning, and I was treating it all naturally and homeopathically, with various salt-water remedies, until I woke up this morning and said, fuck it, I’m going for the big guns. A Sudafed with my third cup of coffee and I feel marginally better, and significantly more jittery.

I don’t like to complain about things like colds, because truly, if no one is barfing, I’m happy. But really, the thing I hate most about a head cold is the whole “me brain no work good”. Like I was completely puzzled as to why the sink wasn’t draining when I rinsed out the teapot, only to find the offending teabag plugging the drain. Or how I became internally belligerent today at the grocery store because I couldn’t find the raisins, which were located exactly where they always are.

But MY WORD, the children. The children are so irritating. My husband says it’s not them, it’s me, which is true I’m sure but “Mom? Mom? Mom? Mom? MOM? Guess what? Mom? Guess what? Mom? Can I tell you something?” is getting to me. Are they honestly always like that and do I just not notice? Answer: probably. They seem to expect a response for every “Mom?” and even when I do respond, they continue to repeat it. “Mom? Mom?” It’s all I can do not to scream “FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, WHAT? WHAT?” Generally by the time they finish their litany of “Mom?”’s, they have forgotten what they were saying in the first place. KILL ME.

The happy news is that the sun is out. After a summer which was, reportedly, one of the coldest on record, and ahead of what is supposed to be one of the coldest winters on record, the sun is actually shining and it is warm enough that I am not wrapped in the gigantic grey sweater my mother-in-law knitted for me ten years ago, as I have been for days. The kids have been happily playing at the school playground and I have been happily soaking up the sun, wearing three layers of sweaters. I am going to be well tomorrow, I just know it. It’s not just the Sudafed talking.

The Sun Came Out!

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This was the view from my back door yesterday morning:

Spring!

It’s mostly melted now, but it was snowing and grey for most of the day until about 6:00 pm, when the sun festively came out. Jake’s mystery illness presented itself as a nasty headcold, and I just could not face bundling him up, running through the snow and howling winds, dropping Mark at school, and doing it all over again two and a half hours later, so I decided to keep Mark home yesterday. “If I let you stay home, we need to do some schoolwork”, I said sternly, to which Mark replied, “Oh boy! Okay! What’s my first assignment? This is going to be great!” So evidently my nerdy and bookwormish tendencies have been passed on to the next generation. In fact, the entire day was spent pretending our house was a school. Mark kept asking which “centres” he could play at. “Is the writing centre open? Is the dinosaur centre open? I’m going to set this book aside for the reading centre. Okay? Okay Mom? Okay?”

The other night I was premenstrually sobbing to my husband about the passage of time and how the boys are not going to want to spend time with me as they grow and how I’m just going to be the horrible bitchy mother-in-law everyone complains about and in a couple of years Jake is NOT going to want to grocery shop with me and woe is me, I’m sad. My husband replied cheerily that, not to worry, Mark will likely always want to do math puzzles and crosswords with me, which seems apt, after yesterday’s events. (“Is the science centre open?”).

Ah, it’s all good. Of all the characters in The Breakfast Club, I have always secretly identified with the character played by Anthony Michael Hall – “In the physics club, we talk about physics, properties of physics” – although I had a huge crush on the Judd Nelson character. Ooh, the bad boy. It’s funny how all of the most attractive movie characters are also the ones who would be the worst to be in a relationship with. Take the Ralph Fiennes character from The English Patient, for example. Ralph Fiennes, so yummy, so intense, and yet, imagine being married to the guy. It would be terrible! The guy hardly ever smiles, and forget about lighthearted conversation. “What do you want for dinner, honey?” “I HAVE BEEN WALKING. FOR THREE DAYS.” I know this is controversial, but it would be much more amiable to be married to the jovial Colin Firth character than the sexy Ralph Fiennes character. At least he remembered their anniversary.

Huh. I meant only to write today about the snow, and my bookworm of an older child, and Jake’s miraculous recovery today and how I have a very! exciting! weekend! ahead of me, but somehow I got on the topic of attractive movie characters who would be hell to be married to. So, that sounds like a great game for a Friday! What movie character do you find terribly attractive and yet, you know would not be good relationship material? Ooh, just thought of another one: John Cusack in Say Anything. I know. I know. Controversial. But really, wouldn’t that lack of ambition get to you after a while? Okay, weigh in, this should be fun!

Bitch, we’re coming for you.

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Mark has largely recovered from his recent mysterious illness, but, in an incredible twist of misfortune, my husband is now ill. Let us all take a moment of silence on receiving that information. Not only that, but Jake – who was fine when I dropped him at school this morning – was runny nosed and headachy and exceedingly irritable when I picked him up a mere 150 minutes later. I can almost see the mystery illness pointing its slimy, germy fingers at me. “Bitch, we’re coming for you.” I am tired although I’m trying to convince myself that I’m tired simply because of all the sick people in my house keeping me awake at night.

Speaking of visualizing the mystery illness, I had a very disturbing conversation with friends who told me that a) seatbelts on airplanes have very high levels of fecal matter on their buckles, and b) headrests on airplane seats squeam them out because of the possibility of lice transfers. The next time I fly I am going to have to explain away the plastic bubble that I will have encased myself in. That, and the disinfectant that I will be using to clean all touchable surfaces.

Also? That commercial for automatic liquid soap dispensers that shows all the viruses and germs on the pump of a regular liquid soap dispenser should be outlawed. That is information I did not need, nor did I need to see it so clearly.

In other, non-freakishly-germ-phobic news, I volunteered in Mark’s class today, which I love. “Mark’s mom is here!” one of his classmates exclaimed upon seeing me. I almost corrected him with my actual name, which is MarkandJake’s mom. But I do love going to the kindergarten; the kids are so cute and enthusiastic, and I know the day will come when Mark will not happily tolerate my blowing him kisses and waving to him while he rotates through various class centres. I was helping to make bird houses out of milk containers, and in a fascinating turn of safety violation events, I sliced first one finger, then another, on the scissors while cutting out perching holes. Kids, be careful with the scissors, she says whilst holding her dripping finger and darting for the medical supplies.

So my sore fingers and my overwhelming tiredness are not being helped by the current weather conditions: a festive spring snowstorm. It is, as I write this, snowing sideways. Well, we need the moisture, as my cheery elderly neighbour says. The upside to this is that perhaps, just perhaps, soccer will be cancelled tomorrow night. Which will be fortunate if I succumb to mystery illness. Which I’m not going to. But just in case.

Statement Retraction: Groundhog Day

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It pains me to do this, but I feel I must retract my statement with regards to Groundhog Day. Don’t get me wrong: I am aware that there will be more snow and frosty temperatures, but the past few days have been absolutely beautiful – puddles and brown grass appearing where previously there were piles of dirty snow, the sun shining, and the sky a postcard Alberta blue. Yesterday the boys and I took the dog for a walk, all three of us wearing only down vests and shirtsleeves, and our new rubber boots. It really felt spring-ish, and yes, I know, I know, it’s deceptive, but still: I’m sorry, Balzac Billy. I’m sorry for laughing at you and disbelieving you and making fun of the fact that you are just some guy dressed up as a groundhog. Could you please not see your shadow every year? Thank you.

So it’s been a glorious weekend, despite the fact of absent husband. As an aside, I was in Wal-Mart yesterday and ran into a friend’s husband and mentioned that Rob was in Vancouver. “I’m living the single girl life!” I said cheerily, and he raised his eyebrows. What? So I’m in Wal-Mart at 10:00 a.m. with a cart full of Mini-Wheats, children’s Tylenol, and Kleenex, with two kids jonesing for McDonald’s yogurt parfaits. Isn’t that what all the single girls are doing these days? But I’m especially happy because – and I’m superstitious just writing this, so I’m knocking wood – no one has been vomiting.

There has been a stomach flu going around, I discovered the day after our sick day. I was waiting for the kindergarten to be let out, chatting with another mom, who was telling me a prolonged story about the vomiting going on in her house, and she casually mentioned that her youngest son – a classmate and friend of Mark’s, who was in class that day – was throwing up only the day before. The day before! I probably looked like a caricature of a crazy person – or maybe I am a crazy person – as my eyes widened with this knowledge that the VIRUS WAS AMONG US. Once the class let out I accosted Mark and slathered him with hand sanitizer. I would have ripped off his clothes and burned them if I could have figured out a way to do it without it being weird.

I really, really want to be one of those people who are all casual about illnesses, all kids-get-sick-and-barf-no-big-deal, but I am not. I am still somewhat scarred from the first time Mark ever got sick: it was the rotavirus. He was 19 months old, and Jake was four weeks old and colicky. And Mark, along with my husband, contracted the rotavirus. Once we got through that, only three months later Mark – and my husband – contracted a virus akin to Norwalk. Jake was still colicky. Mark threw up for a week, and didn’t eat for ten days. For those of you who also have skinny kids, you know what it is to see your toddler’s ribs and toothpick legs after an illness. I was practically deranged from a lack of sleep and worry. The upside of all this is that I was so stressed out that I didn’t eat and ended up losing the remainder of my pregnancy weight, which is to say there is always a silver lining.

I have gotten a lot better about my germ paranoia, with the boys being older and sturdier, and with me being a more confident and rested parent. But I’m still overjoyed that we had such a lovely weekend, and that we seem to have missed this particular virus. Hoo boy. I better go knock wood again.

Olympic Sick Day

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It was only a matter of time. I actually thought to myself that it was a miracle – a miracle! – that we hadn’t been sick so far this calendar year. It was especially miraculous because the kindergarten class has been a petrie dish of violently coughing five year olds. Coughing into the sleeve isn’t really an effective measure against the spreading of viruses if said sleeve is one inch from someone else’s face.

So Mark developed a cough this week, and then a fever, along with the whining and clinging that such illness generally brings, and so I kept him home from school yesterday. I came across an article entitled “Sick Day Strategies”, aimed at entertaining sick little people. It advocated for, among other things, cuddles, stories and quiet games. Does it feel like parenting articles are just a little too obvious at times?

But of course cuddles, stories, and quiet games did constitute a large part of our day, along with freezies, a homemade batch of playdough, and copious amounts of TV. Hilarity ensued when Jake, rummaging through a backpack that had been unused for two years, found a pull-up diaper. He immediately pulled it on over his jeans and ran around the house saying “Goo goo ga ga, I’m a baby!” This entertained Mark for some time. Still, by mid-afternoon mind-numbing boredom kicked in for all three of us, so when Mark asked if he could use the camera – a request that is repeated several times a day and often results in some pretty strange photos – I agreed. He and Jake went downstairs for a while, and the following pictures are the result.

As an aside, I should mention, again, that my husband is a huge fan of the Olympics – in fact he left for Vancouver this morning – and he watches Olympic coverage near-constantly while at home. That theme song is haunting me. Instead of feeling left out that he has gone for a couple of days, I’m actually somewhat elated that I’m not going to hear that music. Tonight I’m planning on eating a pan of kale chips, drinking wine, and watching Season Three NYPD Blue, the combination of which has me so excited that I’m starting to wonder about my own mental stability. I blame the breakdown on the theme music.

Without further ado, here are Select Olympic Events, as modeled by Jake, photography and artistic direction by Mark.

Lighting of the Olympic flame:

Hockey:


A Gold Medal Ceremony:


Biathlon:

Not medaling:


And finally, luge: