We’ve had quite the adventure without even leaving home the past couple of weeks.
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It hasn’t been a fun one though, between one child with a 20-day bout of tonsillitis and the rest of us with colds and flus.
Work waits for no worker, and the cooking, washing and other essential household chores wait for no single parent.
Except for when they have to.
You mostly push on — except for that day I woke dazed and confused as my own mum materialised at my bedside feeding me Panadol and Hydralyte and organising the healthier two of my three kids for school that day, seeing as I had no idea what time or what day of the week it was.
You know those moments when you feel so rubbish that the bed around you could be on fire and you might not even notice, let alone care.
Yeah, that.
If you don’t count COVID-19, I had never had a flu until now.
And I’ve come to the conclusion I’d like to avoid it for at least another 40-plus years, too.
Thankfully on day five of its grasp I had enough energy to head out for a couple of paper rounds with my healthy middle child.
It was a slow, tiring walk I had to encourage myself through.
I was enjoying the fresh air, but the longing to lie down again as soon as I got home was palpable.
I was fading quickly, close to finishing the trek on all fours, when my phone rang.
It was my eldest.
“Mum, please don’t get mad, but I’ve just gotten out of the shower and I’ve vomited all over the bathmat and the floor.”
What?
I had to dig into the very depths of my soul to find a scrap of maternal sympathy at that moment.
I had so many questions.
The toilet is approximately 1.5m away from the shower, could you not have made it that far?
The basin is even closer.
And if still neither of those was an option, could you not have just pivoted on the same very spot and hurled straight back on to the shower floor where we could wash it directly down the drain?
Did you not feel that rising until it was too late?
Have you not yet vomited enough in your lifetime to recognise the oncoming sensation?
Why are you ringing me instead of cleaning it up?
(I discovered later he’d also taken a precious moment to Snapchat the scene to his friends, for crying out loud.)
I’m ashamed to admit that all of this went through my head before the possibly more appropriate motherly reaction of worry for my child’s health.
I suppose it wasn’t a shock to hear he was vomiting, seeing as I’d been there with this flu a couple of days earlier myself, so I probably knew it was looming for him and that it too would pass for him.
So sympathy took a back seat while the selfishness of desperately not wanting to be greeted by a pile of vomit needing to be cleaned up as soon as I walked in the door, exhausted, took over.
Following his instructions to “not get mad”, I kept my cool and found gratitude that this time it was on a mat that could be picked up and washed and a hard tile surface that could be easily washed down, rather than all over his mattress and bedroom carpet like the last time he had a crack.
And to his credit, he did a pretty good job of cleaning it himself before I got home.
This had been the first weekend in many we didn’t have plans, which was either lucky because we all ended up sick and didn’t have anything that needed cancelling, or unlucky that instead of just voluntarily resting, we had no other option but to rest.
Change of season is historically fraught with viruses, and this change brought some doozies our way.
Luckily board games in front of the heater can really be just as much fun as an adventure away from home.
You’re spending time with the most important people and making memories — maybe not as blockbuster, but still just as special — and rest, togetherness and good health are three pretty vital ingredients for happiness.
Winter hibernation mode: activated.
Nah, who am I kidding? We’ll be up and at ’em as soon as everyone’s well again.
Because adventure waits for no young or restless.
Except for when it has to.
The Young and the Restless