A long week...

I started the weekend sick, not being able to get to my garden or pick up the house for my son's impending birthday party with a small group of his friends.  I thought I had food poisoning and that my family was safe...

Then, my husband got sick.  Then just as he was starting to feel better, my son got sick.  Yep- not food poisoning but a virus...  Thank God for a working laundry machine.  During the chaos, the first time my son vomited, he didn't want to change his baseball player "jersey" (he calls it a jersey when it has a player's name and number on the back).  He also requests that we don't call him by his baptismal game, but by whatever name of the player who he is wearing or feels like today.  I have had to call my three year old Manny Machado and Michael Brantley.  I have a hard enough time not calling him my dog's name or cat's name, especially when they are all getting into trouble together it's even harder to come up with the player of the hour's name.  So as I'm convincing him to get out of the jersey that clearly has vomit on it, he protests, "No, it's clean".  I tell him his other one is in the wash.  I run downstairs and bring it up and it is still wet.  I tell him it needs to go back in the dryer.  Instead, he tears it out of my hands, crumples it up in a little ball and proceeds to take a paper towel and tries to "dry" his scrunched up shirt.  I give him an A+ for creativity.  He then decided he wanted to wear a wet shirt- I decided that's better than a shirt with vomit- so sure, if he has to wear a jersey that badly, he can wear it wet.

The other day I heard a parent say, "The nights are long, but the years are short."  That's so true.  When you are in the difficult, sleep deprived moments of parenting, it's hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel.  You look forward to the moments when you can go to the bathroom by yourself, or as I told a coworker the other day, "Sometimes I don't mind sitting in an hour and a half of traffic.  It's rough, but I look at it as my own selfish tranquility when I can listen to any music I want, belt out any tune I want and not have to make references to Paw Patrol or sports or help with a potty break for a small piece of my life."  I will miss those moments surely.  Just as I will miss the moment last night where the three of us sickies were all laying in bed and my son said, "I love you Mommy" all on his own as he nuzzled my nose.  I responded, "I love you too!".  He then said, "But I love you three!"  I said what about Daddy, "I love him four!"  We did the love you's up to thirty-one, the number on the back of his "jersey".  It was priceless and worth every long night I ever spend covered in bodily fluids....

While the nights are long and the years are short, my husband and I found ourselves at my son's preschool orientation and can't believe he's going to preschool!  I had a weird Deja Vu moment like I was back on my first day of high school (I moved to a new area for high school and was the new kid in a small school with lots of cliques).  I started to panic about "falling into the wrong crowd" and making friends with the "right parents" and saying the right things.  My husband who had a wonderful high school experience and is a typical guy- couldn't fathom my social anxiety.  I don't know how it's all going to work out, but I did think, "well, most people grow up from that phase- and really- if they haven't grown up from the high school phase- would I want to be friends with them?"  I have to admit the health issues in my family this week didn't give me too much time to focus on anxiety and makes me realize that most of us parents are just trying to make it through the week- and the nights and don't have time to worry about the small stuff...