Sometimes being Sick is the Only Vacation a Mom Can Get...

"I reckon being ill as one of the great pleasures of life, provided one is not too ill and is not obliged to work till one is better."  ~Samuel Butler, The Way of All Flesh, 1903

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      My kids love to watch a show on the Disney Channel called "Good Luck, Charlie". On one of the episodes, the mom ended up in the hospital and made her injury seem worse to her family than it really was, just for some R&R. Hmmm... Started my creative juices flowing at the time. But I forgot about that great idea and a couple of years later, I ended up sick. For real. This past weekend, in fact. 

      It all started after a pampering session I attended with my soon-to-be married little sis, my older sis, my mom, and some future family members. As I got into my mom's SUV about to head out to a local buffet for lunch, I felt it. That well-known stab in the belly. The on-set of the dreaded... stomach virus. I brushed it off, figuring it was just my too-tight waistband cutting off the blood flow to my lower extremities, and we made our way to the restaurant. Much to my dismay, I was only able to down one plate of food instead of my usual five three. I luckily made it through lunch without having to make any trips to the restroom. My mom dropped me off at my house where I was greeted by my harried husband (who had to watch all four kids at the same time, bless his poor inexperienced heart) and my four kids, who were able to stave off hunger until I walked through the door. Yes, the inevitable "mommy's home so let's bombard her with everything that we want even though we've been home with daddy for the past 4 hours" took place. That's when I had to rush my mom out the door and run to explode in the bathroom. And I'm not using the word explode lightly. No, my entire digestive system decided to betray me and spew forth all of its contents. After a good and productive 20 minutes in my beautifully decorated "dressing/powder room", I flushed the violated commode, pulled up my pants, grasped each side of the sink and looked at myself in the mirror. I smiled. My ship had come in. Vacay time! I put on my game face (aka sick face) and hobbled into the kitchen. My husband was there preparing a lovely dinner to throw on the grill. That figured. The day before my bug decided to rear its ugly head, I all but BEGGED the man to grill some of the nice steaks we had in the freezer. 

       "I hate grillin' on that thing." He said, refusing to peel his eyes away from our stupid smart tv with its never-ending plethora of Netflix movies on it's swivel mount screwed into our wall on his side of our oh-so-comfy tempurpedic bed that I am usually too busy to enjoy. You know, with raising kids and a hubby and all.

       "It's too small." He whined. 

        I flipped him off, and headed down the stairs.

       So here I was, the next day, my guts writhing with infection and loose BMs, hating the smell of the grill that Anthony oh-so-vehemently cursed the day before. My eyes rolled right along with my stomach and I limped up the stairs to change into something more comfy. As luck would have it, I had no clothes. The laundry was all done except for two baskets full of my clothes that always seem to end up in the wash AFTER everyone else has clean clothes. I sighed heavily, and grabbed the only two articles of clean clothes that I had; a pair of khaki shorts (the only pair of shorts that I have WITHOUT an elastic waistband) and my bride's maid t-shirt that my sis got for me to wear out when we do our wedding errands. Great. If I wanted to deter any sexytime that Anthony may want to have later on, this would do it if the runs didn't. I pulled on this smokin-hot outfit and finally plopped down on the bed. I clicked on the tv and realized I could finally relax. Ant walked in and that's when I broke the news to him. 

      "I'm sick and I got the poops."

      "Ugh", he replied. Then he disappeared again. 

       Just as I began to get comforatble, I heard him yell up to our lovenest,

       "Your mom's back and she's crying. Get down here!" 

       "AAAAHHH!" I screamed. My mom and dad had been going through some kind of spat, so I rolled off the bed and stumbled BACK downstairs to entertain. I mean, don't get me wrong, I felt bad for my mom, but I was really sick! My stomach was cramping even more and to make matters worse, my mom was a little intoxicated. Great. So as she poured her heart out and repeated the same story for the 39th time, I tried to act interested. I even offered to drive her home if she didn't feel like she could do it herself. Finally, after using every tactic I could think of to gross her out about my worsening condition, she decided to go home, but not before leaving me half a xanax so I could go to sleep. Good ol' mama. :) I went back up stairs to have another go at my vacation. My husband joined me shortly after leaving the kids to their own defenses and I passed out.

       When I finally awoke out of my Xanny induced stupor, I was even worse off than I was the day before. Every joint in my body felt like someone was drilling screws into them. I even thought I may finally have known what the pain felt like when Kathy Bates smashed James Caan's ankles with that hammer thing in "Misery". It was REALLY bad. Ant decided he had to go visit his mom an hour away. I told him to make sure the kids had food because I just couldn't move. I really couldn't. What a vacation this was turning out to be. My 11 year old seemed to be excited to baby-sit for the afternoon, and after Anthony gave me some ibuprofen and Pepto-Bismol to chase the pills with, he took off. I turned on the tv and put on my go-to-tv-show-when-down-in-the-dumps "The Twilight Zone", but my discomfort wouldn't allow me to enjoy it. I ended up falling asleep again. I hadn't had any more bouts with diarrhea since the day before, but I felt like crap. No pun intended. I suppose he eventually came home, cause I woke up to the smell of, guess what? The dang grill going again!

       So that was my weekend. My husband is only off every other weekend and that just so happened to be it. So not only did I get to spend no time with my husband, I missed out on some great food. 

       Monday morning finally came. Anthony had already left for work and I was sore but recovering from the weekend's raucous "partying". I drug my battered body out of bed to get the kids ready for school and I was greeted with a wonderful surprise. My awesome kids cleaned up the entire downstairs that I was dreading to see. I hadn't left my bed almost the entire day Sunday, so you can imagine how nervous I was to see the house. They had done laundry! They had washed dishes! They had cleaned up the kitchen and the living room! I smiled as I stepped off the last step into the living room. I may have had to pay a dear price for my vacation, but it was worth it. My kids appreciate me. That's why they wanted to do for me what I always do for them. And I would go through all that pain all over again just to have them... clean up the entire house. :)

       I hope y'all have enjoyed my ramblings today! Feel free to leave a comment a let me know how you manage to "take a vacation". Don't forget to subscribe and vote for me on topmommyblogs.com! Just click that button at the top of my right sidebar and get me to first! Thanks for stopping by!

~XoXo Jess