A Quiet Weekend at Home

This past week has been my spring break, so of course I got sick. I started feeling run-down on Tuesday afternoon, lost my voice on Wednesday, and by Friday morning I was asking Kyle to use our Maglite flashlight to check out whether I had sores in my throat (one of the few things that, for me, justifies paying for a doctor's visit).

Upon confirming that I did, indeed, have a nasty-looking throat, Kyle went straight to work and found a sub so that I could rest while he took care of the kids (Seriously, I hope all you ladies out there are jealous of what a fantastic husband I have). I lucked out and got into our doctor on a Friday, and I was just sure I'd be diagnosed with strep throat and given some magical antibiotics to take care of that right away.

"So your strep screen?" said the Intern at our doctor's office, "Is NEGATIVE! I know, I thought SURE that's what you had, too." While I kicked myself for shelling out the money for the visit, she explained that I just had a bad cold, swollen tonsils, something about post-nasal drip, we're prescribing some steroids... And then she said:

"You have serious laryngitis and should really rest your voice. Try not to talk for a day or two. Just use sign language or point to communicate for a while."

I almost laughed out loud at this twenty-something student-physician. CLEARLY she does not know what it's like to live in a house with two very attached small children. When I got home I told Kyle about this ridiculous suggestion, and he said he thought we should actually try it. And in that second it occurred to me that perhaps I AM a little arrogant to assume that I am SO important that I couldn't just shut up for a day or two and let him handle things. So I just agreed.

And so Kyle announced to the kids that Mommy will not be talking this weekend, and that all questions should be addressed to him. He agreed to do all the book-reading and phone-answering, and suggested some gestures that the kids might look for me to use to replace important phrases (like "I love you"). The kids thought the signs and enforcing a "no talking" rule for Mommy was great fun, and I did spend the rest of the evening mostly silent.

The irony, of course, is that where before I had somewhat of a cough with my cold and sore throat, now I have a cough (literally) on steroids. So while I spent our evening being quiet, I spent the ENTIRE night coughing my brains out. Around 1:30 in the morning I moved to the couch to avoid keeping Kyle up, and couldn't get back to sleep. I read Counselling for Eating Disorders, Second Edition for a while (because if I'm not sleeping I might as well work on some CEU's), hoping that would bore me to sleep, but no dice.

So this morning, Kyle again came to the rescue and got up with the kids, getting them fed and dressed and taking them to Daniel's soccer game while I went back to bed to continue hacking. I have not talked today, other than a few sentences of goodbye as everyone went out the door. I have to admit, I find the whole idea of laryngitis funny, mostly because I have a continual mental image of Carol Brady in one of the (seriously there were at least two) episodes where she can't talk.

Like this one.

Yep, it's kinda like that around here.