Life After Being Sick

Things you take for granted when you aren't sick:

• breathing clearly
• sleeping for more than a couple of hours at a time (because you can't breathe clearly)
• not coughing
• having energy
• being able to leave the house
• food that tastes good
• not sitting on the couch

We got hit HARD over the past week and a half.  With a cold of all things.  I can't remember the last time a freaking cold has knocked me out so bad. (Although people have suggested that being pregnant can cause it to hit harder and last longer?  So maybe.  Sure.  Let's blame the baby.)  Caden was first.  He's so much more susceptible to catching bugs than Brooklyn or me.  Us girls probably would have been in the clear, but he ended up in bed with me one night (because he couldn't breathe/sleep) and as he rolled around, coughing and leaking fluids out of every facial orifice onto my pillow, I thought, "There is no way I'm going to escape this...".  (Thanks, son!)

Just when we had some sort of rhythm going in our lives (playgroups!  friends! errands!  etc.!) and the countdown was just two weeks to Tyson being home (the end is in sight!  I've totally got this!) then, of course, this had to happen.

Thank the Lord that one of my parents spent the night with us for four nights in a row while I went through the worst of it.  And brought us essentials such as: food.  And Kleenex. I was getting only 3-5 very interrupted hours of sleep, and as it was, this is how our days looked:

Us.

On the couch.

Mostly in pajamas.

(Also I would like to point out that Brooklyn looked at the camera for each and every picture, while Caden's eyes never left the TV.  Which was always on.  Winnie the Pooh and Daniel Tiger jingles even more stuck in my head than usual.  Save me.)

This was more than being in the trenches.  This was lying in the trenches half dead, trying to even care.  I so wanted to do something (anything!) else besides lie on the couch or take a nap again, but physically couldn't.  Caden was mostly better after about a week, but Brooklyn and I were still pretty bad, so we still couldn't go anywhere.  Poor kid kept getting in trouble because he was so damn bored from being cooped up all day long (even Pooh and Daniel have their limits) that he got into anything and everything.

Things you fully appreciate after being sick:

• leaving the house.  To go anywhere.  Even the post office with it's LONGEST LINE EVER.
• breathing
• having energy.  You thought you didn't have energy before (because: twins) but now you know.  You can tackle anything now.
• cleaning, and caring that things are clean
• coffee.  And other food that you normally love but couldn't/didn't want to touch while you were sick because ew.

I felt so liberated and free yesterday, leaving the house for the first time in almost a week to go to Target.  (I hadn't been there in a week and a half.  They were probably worried about me.)  And blessed, to be able to run errands, and have the strength and energy to take the kids with me.  It might sound kind of cheesy, but I have been fully appreciating the mundane ordinariness of our lives over the past couple of days.  Running errands, cooking dinner, cleaning up, doing laundry, repeat, repeat, repeat.  I have the strength and energy to take charge of our lives again, and now there are only two days until Tyson comes home for good. (!!!)  We've got this.