Every Little Thing She Does...

This weekend was a rough one. On Thursday night/Friday morning, Lucy got the flu. She vomited 6 times during the night. Things have progressed on this front though. When she was little, she wanted to be held while she vomited, which meant that I ended up with it all over my front side. Not a pretty looking or smelling picture. Now, she is able to use a large bowl, or even better, make it to the restroom and aim for the toilet.

The other thing that happened that night was that I too became ill. I developed a fever around 101 that night and it rose to a high of 102 over the next day or so. Luckily, Doc prescribed me some antibiotics and I am feeling much better.

With Lucy being sick, and me way down for the count the wife, a.k.a. Bethany, stayed home from work on Friday to nurture all of us back to health. She was amazing; everything that you would want in a wife and or mother of your children. Thursday night, she came down stairs to wake me from my fitful slumber on the sofa (I have been falling asleep watching TV lately) to inform me that Lucy was sick. She saw that I was sick too and quickly became SUPER MOM.

She charted Lucy back and forth between the bed and bathroom, cleaned-up a miss in the hallway, and somehow managed to keep Jack asleep in his own bed the whole night!

Friday was much the same; she was a work horse. Fortunately, Lucy was so wiped out that she slept most of the day, and I was still very wiped out, so I slept too, which left Bethany to handle Jack for the day. It was good to rouse out of my sick state of sleep and listen to the two of them playing or talking.

Saturday, was a little better. Lucy was up, not running, but she was up and about. She was beginning to eat a little, which is more than can be said for me. The cold I had wiped out my sense of smell and with it, my love of taste; so I was not hungry at all. Jack was still very much Jack and running wild and doing great with individual play. Bethany made lunch, played with the kids, and I pretty much tried to recover. She ran the show.

Saturday night, Jack got sick. One bathroom floor clean-up and some new P.J.’s later; he was sleeping with me on the couch. That didn’t last too long and we moved to the big bed. That lasted an even shorter amount of time, as Jack had to vomit again. After that, I had no clue what happened the rest of the night because the Nyquil kicked in and I was done.

Sunday morning, Bethany informed me that Jack had made the journey 3 more times. I couldn’t believe it. I hadn’t heard a thing, and I was sleeping in the kids’ room right next to the bathroom. I ended up staying home from church and taking care of the sick little guy while Bethany and Lucy went to the Speckled Bird (this was part of Lucy’s plan) and to church.

I don’t know how she did it, but Bethany managed to stay healthy (mostly, a stuffy nose is small compared to the rest of the potential ills), prepare meals, do dishes, clean the entire upstairs’ bed rooms, and leave the house looking better than when it started the weekend. I couldn’t believe it. She is amazing and the love of my life.

I just hope that this little blog of her weekends’ miracle work won’t jinx her or me because I don’t know if I could do nearly as good of a job as she did under similar circumstances. Thank you, wifey.

The Proverbial Apple

The other day, I was sitting in our red chair in the living room, Jack comes be-bopping along and plops down in the brown chair that sits in the corner of the room. He’s sitting there mumbling to himself mostly or talking to himself while he plays. At this point, I have become pretty accustomed to tuning him out. When he started to call my name over and over again, I reluctantly pulled myself away from the television to engage my son.

He was sitting with his head lying on the arm of the chair. One eye covered up. Saying, “Daddy, I am a Cyclops. Did you know Cyclops only have one eye?”

I laughed really hard and told him that I did know that but appreciated him refreshing my memory. He later grabbed the DVD case for Monsters Inc. and pointed out that, “The little green guy is a Cyclops too; ‘cause he only has one eye too; but the big blue guy has two eyes, so he isn’t a Cyclops.”

After this, I realized that the saying of “The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” is more accurate than I first believed. It was several years ago when Bethany and I were engaged that we traveled to Columbus to visit Christiana a great friend and college roommate of Bethany while she attended Cedarville. We stayed at Christiana’s apartment and slept on the living room floor. It was getting late at night and quickly approaching the hour that my old college roommate accurately described as, “Getting sleep drunk.” We were giddy and just talking silliness.

Bethany started to speak in a monotone voice saying, “I’m a robot. I am talking like a robot. I am a robot.” Over and over again she would say this. In retaliation, I started to say, “I am a Cyclops,” because I, just like my son, had one eye covered.

Both memories will be special for many years to come and now are inevitably linked in my brain. I hope that through the next several years, I will have more, “Aha,” moments with my kids and realize that indeed, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.