In Which SuperMommy Crashes and Burns

We all have the plague.  No buboes to speak of, not yet, but we've got a household cornucopia of bronchitis, head colds, laryngitis, fevers, lacerations (yes, lacerations), and chills.

It all started at the pediatrician's office.  DD got a fever after getting her Hepatitis B shot, and it seemed to open the door to the COLD of DOOM.  She's been spewing mucus like mad, and HATES having her nose wiped.  Just hates it.

Then I caught the damn thing.  Ever since I was a teenager, I've had crap for an immune system and nursing certainly hasn't helped matters.  So I rush headlong from a simple cold into a full blown, can't breathe laying down, mega-bronchitis of disaster.  And that just opens the door to the flu.

M was a trooper.  He was taking care of me, watching the girls, and somehow NOT succumbing.  All this, despite being essentially down by a hand thanks to an Independence Day related pocket knife injury.  But nothing that good lasts.  As he began to decline my flu started kicking in, and we started canceling our commitments and hunkering down for the long haul.

I always knew there were reasons that one would want to live nearby their parents as an adult.  I always knew that having your own children would intensify those reasons.  Both my and M's parents live at least a six hour drive away.

Last night, when M ran out to get me some soup and pudding, I knew we couldn't go on like this.  I had a screaming baby in one arm, and a handful of combined mucus, kleenex, and something much fouler in the other.  I cracked.  This morning?  SI has a fever, M is finally as sick as I am, and I've called in the reserves.

If she weren't in London right now, I'd be begging my mom to come and take care of us.  So in lieu of my mother, I called the only other mom I know who would fly in like an angel of mercy and make soup, cups of tea, and change dirty diapers in my filthy house.  My mother in law.

Before you cue the ominous music, you should know that I love and get along well with my MIL.  I may not agree with her on a great many political and religious issues, but those are things we keep to ourselves.  To this day I believe that the biggest disagreement we've ever had was at a wedding, when she wanted to stop DD from eating a program, and I told her to just let go ahead and let the baby chew on it.  It's a charmed life I lead.

...right up to that point where I'm laying in bed with my laptop burning through the batteries, hacking and sneezing and listening to my children scream, with my husband in an over-the-counter drug induced haze.  What our poor, saintly babysitter must think of us, as she wrestles with our two infants in this beastly heat (have I mentioned we have no a/c this summer?) listening to us wheeze and moan.  I imagine she pities us, which is probably why she's practically moved in.

Saintly, saintly babysitter.

So SUPERMOMMY- the heroine of legend who can defeat any common illness, prepare any meal, and bandage any booboo is completely defeated.  I've thrown in the towel, raised my white flag, and called for reinforcements.  My MIL is flying- FLYING- into town tomorrow morning, and I will just lay in my bed, guzzing endless glasses of water and trying to remember to take my myriad medications.

SuperMommy should be capable!  SuperMommy should be competent!  SuperMommy should throw back her glorious head and laugh until tears of justice stream down her face at the mere idea of a house full of sick people.

SuperMommy was wrong.  So, so wrong.