Life with Liz: Quality overlooked on sick days

It’s that time of year. We’re in the middle of a whirlwind of field trips, science fairs, standardized tests, band concerts, and other end of the school year activities.

Combined with the chaos of spring sports that have been rained out, or even snowed out, for weeks and an ongoing project at work that has me logging in from the baseball field and taking conference calls at all hours of the night, we were already teetering on the edge of our sanity. So, when I first got a little tickle in my throat, I didn’t think too much of it, since allergy season was also on its way.

Sure, I had a little buildup in sinus pressure, it’s that time of year! Sure, my joints were starting to ache a little, but surely it was just because I’d been working outside a little more and shaking off the cobwebs of a long winter. Sure, I was feeling a little warm, but that’s because I had dressed for the morning weather which was in the 40s, and by the afternoon it was in the 80s. There was absolutely no reason to think that there was anything at all wrong with me, because all of these “symptoms” were easily explained away.

I’m a firm believer in mind over matter. As long as I didn’t acknowledge that I might be getting sick, I wouldn’t actually get sick.

As my co-workers started giving me a wide berth and politely suggesting that maybe I’d be better off working from home, I started to come to terms with the fact that I was probably a little under the weather. Surely, a little ibuprofen and a good night’s sleep would keep it at bay and life would go on.

Just in case I was wrong, though, I used my last remaining energy reserve to batten down the hatches. First thing, I made sure that all the dishes in the house were washed. I know from previous experience, by the end of three days, my family can use every single dish in the house, and at that point, they will starve rather than wash a dish.

Then I made sure we had a good supply of macaroni and cheese, chicken fingers and cereal. The last time I was sick, the crew subsisted on take-out pizza for days, ultimately tearing off the lids of the boxes to use as makeshift plates. I was determined that this time, they’d have something resembling a decent meal. I even picked up a few bags of “steam in bag” frozen vegetables.

I could feel my temperature rising and it was starting to hurt to wear clothing, but I had one last task that I had to get done before the illness beat me. I had to get all the laundry in the house done and folded.

I sacrificed quality for quantity and ran everything I could through on a quick wash cycle. And then I ran out of steam, and I had to throw in the towel. If someone ran out of clean clothes, they would be forced to pull clean clothes out of the giant pile that was now stacked up in the laundry room. Luckily, I was finally too sick to care about the wrinkles.

With that, I gave into the raging fever and disappeared into bed for two days straight. Shortly after we had kids, the Wonderful Husband and I realized that both of us being sick at the same time just couldn’t happen anymore, so, whichever one of us is sick is on our own, so as not to share germs and bring the other one down, and the other one is on kid duty. The things you learn about your family when you’re on the sidelines and in a fever-induced haze are quite the revelation. I realized that it takes approximately eight door slams for our family to mobilize and get out the door to go anywhere. I’ve learned that about seven out of 10 times we leave the house, we end up coming back because someone forgot something. I also learned that the first thing everyone does when we get home from anywhere is runs to the bathroom and fights over who gets to use it first. Also, my kids will fight over absolutely everything. I don’t think any one of them has the ability to “keep it down” in any way shape or form.

I learned that my kids have mastered the art of seeking forgiveness rather than permission, especially when it comes to using their electronic devices when they know they’re not supposed to be. I wouldn’t say that they think they can get away with more with the WH, but they were definitely taking advantage of me not being 100 percent and the WH being overwhelmed as he does all the juggling.

I’ve noticed that the older they get, the less concerned my kids are about when I will make my return to the land of the living. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that they might actually enjoy me being sick, but when I did threaten to make a real dinner on Day 3, they roused themselves from their tablets and assured me that they didn’t mind eating mac and cheese again at all and told me to get back to bed. I’m going to choose to believe that they were prioritizing my well-being, and not just extending their own little mini-vacation.

Liz Pinkey is a contributing writer to the Times News. Her column appears weekly in our Saturday feature section.