Parenting isn’t easy while sick with flu
I caught the flu a few weeks ago. It wasn’t pretty, and it took me completely by surprise. I’ve been a high school teacher for 15 years; I assumed I had the immune system of a WHO medic.
I guess my overconfidence was too tempting for this year’s strain of influenza, which turned its beady little eyes on me, rubbed its tentacles together (I’m assuming it has tentacles. And scales) and cackled, “This is going to be fun. Irony is my favourite type of virus.”
Being a sick parent is no fun. Even when I can do little more than loll on the couch feverishly watching reruns of The Simpsons, dinner plans need to be figured out, lunches must be packed and I am still the only functional alarm clock in the house. My husband knows how to be sick. He buys a gallon of apple juice and retreats to bed for five days, periodically sending out polite texts for soup. He sleeps and bothers no one.
I’m that other type of sick person. The person who spends the first day in denial and tries to pretend they’re totally fine, no really, even when they’re hallucinating conversations with animated cartoon characters. The kind who won’t take any medicine because “I don’t want to impede my body’s natural ability to fight the evil invaders.”
After about 24 hours of said valiant denial, I collapse into a puddle of self pity until someone feeds me. Unfortunately for me, my week of the flu was also the week my husband was out of town for work. And, in keeping with my gritty-independent-can’t-do attitude, I didn’t call my mom for reinforcements. I just sat at home, head pounding, racked by fever and chills, and suffered.
I lost 10 pounds in a week. When I realized I was too sick to flaunt the fact that I could fit into my skinny skinny jeans, I knew I had hit rock bottom.
My kids were home throughout all this, of course. They kept their distance and let me rest … for a whole evening. But by Day 2, they were over it.
“What’s for dinner?” Ibrahim asked.
“Snap crackle pop,” I an- swered, the animated cereal mascots talking to me.
“We’re out of dessert, too,” Mustafa added, undeterred. “Can you bake us cookies? Or at least some chocolate cake with caramel frosting?”
I’m pretty sure kid-self-absorption is a biological, survival of the fittest type of thing. And it’s probably my own fault for trying to handle everything myself. Independence has been drilled into me by my immigrant parents.
“Sure I’ll get right on that,” I answered my lousy kids. But they’ve been trained to detect sarcasm from birth and know when to make a tactical retreat.
“Maybe when you’re feeling better!” they said, running away.
My sons are not completely useless — they vacuum the house, dust, do their own laundry, empty the dishwasher and have almost mastered putting plates away. Still, the day-today running of the household still falls to me and my husband. They still need a ride to school, help with homework and they don’t know how to cook. Usually, I love that they still need me. Except for right at this moment, when I wish they were fully grown and making me soup.
I realize how fragile it all is, the smooth running of a regular week. One bout of the Irony Virus plus one unavoidable business trip and everything descends into chaos. My husband comes home at the end of the week and gives the kids a stern talking to, of the “come on boys, you could have packed lunches for a few days and walked to school more often” variety. I don’t hear all of it — I am too busy chugging vitamins and taking off my Responsible Parent cloak. I’m back to normal within a week. But I refuse to bake them cookies. Uzma Jalaluddin