At about 6pm yesterday I thought “Wow, my stomach doesn’t feel great” but chalked it up to the overwhelming scent of a citrus cleaner being used in my kitchen.   Wrong.   At 6:15 I raced to the bathroom and spent a lovely 3+ hours sitting on the floor in front of the toilet, emptying the contents of my stomach and then some.  (Aren’t you glad I’m sharing?)    When I was finally able to stand, I made it to the bedroom and lay on the bed on my stomach, which was still sending shooting pains around and threatening to misbehave.    Then came the chills and fever, followed by restless sleep until sometime in the night when I woke, kicking of the blankets and sweatshirt I was wearing because the fever was breaking and it was just. too. hot.     Then a massive thunderstorm rolled through, so I listened to it before falling asleep for real and waking just after 9am, feeling shaky but better.    I managed a piece of bread and some water, had a banana at lunch and then miraculously, about 30 minutes ago, felt a rumble in my stomach that did not signal a run to the bathroom, but a need for sustenance.   And I ate a sandwich!   Isn’t food that stays down a wonderful thing?!

The last time I was that sick (and I think even that wasn’t as bad as last night), Ben was still sleeping in a crib and Maya (who was also sick) was about 5 or so AND our babysitter happened to be spending the night with us due to a taxi strike that made it almost impossible for her to get home.  Lucky her!  (Amazingly, she did not catch the bug from us.)

Yesterday while the drama was happening, Joshua was at work at the store and there were no babysitters in sight.  And here’s the silver lining part:   Maya and Ben, while I was oblivious to the world outside the 6 inches surrounding the toilet bowl, were on their own apart from regular phone calls from Joshua to check in.  (“Hi Abba.  Yes, she’s still in the bathroom.”)    Just before my stomach went south, I’d put a week’s worth of laundry in the machines in our basement laundry room.   No way was I getting down there to take care of it.     No matter.   Maya and Ben put the laundry in the dryers, then went down and took it out of the dryers and brought it back up and THEN folded it when it became obvious that I was not going to be jumping up to do it.   All voluntarily, without being asked.   They ordered out Chinese for themselves, ate, put the dishes in the sink and the leftovers in the frig.    They brought me a sweatshirt once the chills set in.   Ben put himself to bed and so did Maya.   In other words,  they totally blew their cover!!

At ages 11 and 7 they can fend for themselves if necessary, and that is a very good thing.    Of course, spending an evening with a mother retching in the bathroom and a father a phone call away is not exactly roughing it in the wild, but I am very happy to know that they can do their laundry, find food and take themselves to bed without assistance.   It bodes well for the future.

As soon as I showed signs of life this morning, preparing meals and loading the dishwasher and all related tasks were immediately handed back to me, but that’s ok.    There were videos to be made and Lego Star Wars battles to be fought.    All is as it should be.