Lady in Waiting

I’m waiting. Any minute now. I know they’re coming for me, and soon they’ll have me in their grip. My children have sent them, the little skeezy germ soldiers that are taking over my vital systems.

Sometimes I think my kids resent my good health. When they’re sick they want me to FEEL their pain. They keep me up all night so I feel their exhaustion but when I don’t seem beaten down enough, they cough in my mouth. I cannot count the number of times in the last five days that someone has sneezed on me, coughed in me, or slid their green, goopy eye along some part of my body.

I keep hoping that someone will come up and hand me an immunity idol or a DVD to help me develop antibodies of steel but it hasn’t happened yet. As the family coughing post and human slime repository, it is my lot in life to care for everyone else until I crash and then lie on the couch in a stupor while they jump on my face and ask me to feed them.

I’m actually surprised I’ve lasted this long. Between the two of them they have ear infections, pink eye, viral chest colds, fevers, sore throats, and sinus infections. The doctor thinks they both have bacterial and viral infections and I’ve decided that I hate the color green. Hate. Especially lime green. Most especially lime green with yellow highlights. Thick, slimy, infectious green.

Now that they’re sick they’re even more resistant to hand washing than usual. They just don’t have the energy to cleanse themselves and they think I’m a hideous tyrant for forcing them to do so. “But I’m SICK Mom!” Exactly.

Here’s hoping that all the forced hygiene pays off, and that this tickle in my throat is only a figment of my sleep-deprived imagination.