Let me start out by saying that The Winey Family had a wonderful Christmas together here in Northeast Ohio. There were Netflix binges and present shopping and movies and family dinners and much laughter.
At least, we were laughing until about 5 am on the Sunday after Christmas. That was the approximate time that both of The Winey Children, within 30 minutes of each other, came down (or up, to be more grossly specific) with the stomach flu.
It was bad enough when they were little. I seem to remember that every time their tummies rebelled we had inevitably eaten something very, um, colorful for dinner. And to be perfectly honest, those tummies were A LOT smaller back then. I’m sure you know what I mean here.
But this time, in what we have since discovered was the way of this particular tummy flu, the illness came on fast and violently. 45 minutes later, both kids were collapsed on couches in the family room, covered in blankets and with the old trusty pots within their reach. My grown-up, self-sufficient children were reduced to two feverish, sickly babies.
I felt so bad for them! Both home on vacation – one from college, one from military training. Both just itching to get together with friends along with catching up on some relaxing and sleeping and now this.
At one point we actually moved The Winey Son upstairs to the master bedroom in order to be closer to his own bathroom. It seems that sharing the powder room with someone else suffering from the stomach flu is pretty much impossible. And so I ran from upstairs to downstairs carrying flat ginger ale and cold cloths and trying to answer the question that every child asks when they are sick, no matter how old they are: “When will this stop?” You may ask yourself where The Winey Hubby was during all this. Well, let me tell you, I love him, but dealing with barf has never, ever been his strong point. And the last thing I needed here was to have him start a sympathetic reaction with his children. We had tickets to the Cavs game that afternoon (which he and The Winey Son were supposed to go to), so off he went, with our newly lucky brother in law. I missed him, but getting him out of the house was a sort of survival instinct on my part.
Now, I learned one thing from all this, and it’s that Mom mode is in my DNA. It came back to me in a flash: the cool cloths for the forehead, the ginger ale with a straw, the Lysol spray, the pony tail holder (Winey Daughter has VERY long hair), and all the sympathy and comfort you can give your grown up child while they are actively being sick. I held heads and patted shoulders and hands and found the good shows on TV and comforted and prayed and sent The Hubby for more ginger ale on his way home from the game.
They did get better. Both were up and nibbling at food again by Tuesday evening. The Winey Hubby and I never got sick. What I got, however, was one last little reassurance that they may be all grown up, but there are times when they still need their Mommy. I’m bummed that they got sick, but I’m not bummed enough to NOT count those three days as a little bit of a blessing.
Follow my other Winey musings on my blog The Winey Mom.
