and then kate

Forgive me for being the world’s laziest blogger, then feel appropriately sorry for me, for I am sick. It could be worse, considering both Aura and my mother had the stomach flu this weekend. My symptoms are limited to occasional waves of nausea and body aches and a mild fever, leading me to believe that if you use two full gallons of Purell in a 48-hour period, you do reap some benefits. However, the skin on your hands then flakes off in big chunks every time you gesture, so it’s kind of a trade-off.

As I sit here, ignoring my child in the name of recovery, do you know what I am thinking about? Sick days. I can’t believe I never appreciated them in my childless days, when I lolled in bed and moaned at regular intervals and demanded that Adam get me more orange juice and more Advil and then maybe more Hostess cupcakes because I think I read somewhere that the crème filling has restorative properties. (See how it’s crème, not cream? I was a French major, so trust me on this one. That accent over the e? It’s a direct translation of “healing.” )

I haven’t had a true sick day since Aura was born, as I am sure is the case for many other parents. It doesn’t matter if I’m overcome with the world’s worst nausea. Aura still wants to paint/use scissors/color/play Elmo Bingo. You know what I want to do? I want to do exactly what I used to do when I was sick: Watch Lifetime movies. Despite being a network I regularly ridicule in my spare healthy time, Lifetime has almost as much convalescent power as vitamin C. 

During pre-Aura sick days, I would lie on the couch watching it for hours, marveling at how different Tori Spelling looked in those days before she stole that Canadian woman’s husband and got her own reality show. Where else but Lifetime could I distract myself from nasal congestion by imagining what it would feel like to be an unwed teenage mother, or perhaps a career woman stalked by her lunatic ex-husband, or maybe a twentysomething plagued by an eating disorder that can be cured only by the selfless love of the next-door neighbor whom she never before noticed?

On these days, Adam would come home and greet me with something bordering on real alarm, so concerned was he about the tears streaming down my cheeks. Throwing down an armful of throat lozenges, he would rush to the couch and feel my forehead for a fever. ”No, I’m fiiiiiiine,” I’d blubber, wiping my nose with a ratty tissue and pointing at the television.  “It’s just this mooooovie. [sob] Those two are the parents and they just lost their seven-year-old daughter to an incurable blood disease.”

Adam would stare at the TV, his brow furrowed as he tried to catch up. “But why do they have all that baby stuff in their house then, if the daughter was seven?”

After pausing to bite into a fresh cupcake, I’d try to explain. ”Well, just as the daughter was about to die, the mother found out she is pregnant with another child. It’s like one life was lost, but another gained.” As my tears mixed with the chocolate crumbs stuck to my feverish lips, I’d scream, “IT’S ALL JUST SO BITTERSWEET.”

And then I’d feel better. Once you cry for eight straight hours, you really have no need whatsoever for Sudafed. All your nasal passages are clear. Plus you’re so emotionally drained that you sleep right through the night.

But I can’t do that these days. What am I going to do, turn on Lifetime with Aura in the room? I don’t even know how I’d begin to explain incest, never mind the fact that Lifetime Wife Hall of Famer Meredith Baxter-Birney is suddenly a lesbian. The very thought of it is exhausting.

You know, being sick sucks.