I’m not saying it’s a Man Flu my husband has.
I’m just saying that when I had the same illness two weeks ago, I painted the entire interior of a house, and helped my daughter move.
I get it. I do.
Some people’s bodies respond much worse to illnesses than others.
Whereas one person might, say, still be able to make a homemade dinner, and clean up dog poop in the house from a dog that refuses to go out in the rain,
Another may be so stricken that all they can bring themselves to do is watch The Office and eat an entire two-pack of Costco cherry pastries “to try to build back up their strength.”
I know my husband is getting sick when he starts saying he has the
“worst _______ known to man” about things.
That’s his signature phrase.
“I had the worst sore throat known to man all day,”
“I woke up with the worst headache known to man,”
And my personal visual favorite,
“I just had the worst diarrhea known to man.”
Ah. Practically a love letter to me.
And it’s not that I don’t believe him on his claims that it’s the worst on record he’s experiencing,
It’s just that I’m waiting to contact the Guinness Book about him until there are shorter hold-times, maybe.
When the “worst things known to man” start up, the girls all look at me like they’re all pressing the start-clock on the days we all know are upcoming:
The days of the dramatically slow sitting up to take the medicine I bring,
the days of asking if I can pat his back and tell him it’s all going to be OK,
the days where his fever will break, and he will sweat through his shirt, and walk around for hours without changing it, because he just needs us all to see it that way.
When I was sick two weeks ago I had to go about every normal duty, just while extremely pale and clammy, attempting a perma-smile lest I scare my sensitive ten year old.
I cooked dinner, helped with homework, and even did a full move-out clean.
If you have never done fifth grade math model homework with a ten year old while running a 101 fever, you should hang a “Live Laugh Love” sign up, and consider your life highly blessed and happy.
Having my husband catch a Man Flu after I had already been sick for two weeks, and recovered with no help from anyone just added insult to injury,
because now I knew I would soon be handing him a little bell, and looking at my girls with the same loaded “Your father is sick now” face that my mom used to make at me.
I knew the use of “your father” and “your dad” were two completely separate things.
“Your father” was reserved for discussing man illnesses, and weird things he purchased,
like the time he brought home two ostriches after hearing about the value of their eggs.
“Your dad” was much more chipper; much more lightweight.
That one was for things like telling us we could go see if he had $5 we could take for a field trip, or to go tell him about something we learned in band, and to maybe go play him something.
I can remember a time when I was about 11 years old, when my dad was on the couch shivering, wearing a beanie, under two feet of blankets, when I watched my mother walk to the thermostat with a quizzical look, to note that it had been cranked up to the mid 80’s.
She looked at the meter, looked over at him for several long seconds,
(now I know she was accepting her fate)
her mouth silent, but face saying absolutely everything,
and then she turned to look at me with her eyelids flat.
I was her only daughter.
It was time for the download.
She owed it to Future Me to educate.
I didn’t know it yet, but she would pass down the Torch of Understanding Man Sickness to me, and it was in that moment that I had my first glimpse of understanding.
You will say nothing critical, you will care for their needs expertly, pass them ibuprofen sweetly,
but somewhere inside you will suddenly think that there has maybe never been a time that called for a sister-wife more than this exact situation, really.
“He’s making that puffy-cheeked exhale noise again, Becky.
I can’t do it.
I’m tapping you in.
I’ll resume my shift on Monday.”
Mom Outnumbered
Hi! My name is Kerri Green; Wife to Justin, and mother to four highly entertaining daughters -Alena, Chloe, Tessa, and Paige. I am an artist, a writer, a daycare provider, a lover of people, a believer that there is humor and beauty in all things, and the author of Mom Outnumbered; a blog about real family life, and my observations of it. My goal is to make people laugh, to be there for them when they cry, and most importantly, to let them know that they are not at all alone in this up and down world. I live with my family in Sebastopol California, and I am opening the window into our life. So welcome! Come in. Sit down. Just please don’t mind the mysterious wet spots.
