If your four-year-old unexpectedly gets sick in the middle of preschool, you’ll bring him home and tuck him into bed.
And then chances are, he’s going to throw up all over the bed.
And then one of the longest weeks of your life will begin.
And then he’ll get his big sister sick, too.
And then it will be three days straight of never-ending medicine, fevers, baths, Word Girl instant streaming, and laundry.
And chances are, that will be the day that your big scary from-the-depths-of your-soul post about virginity publishes and suddenly rockets as close to “viral” as anything you’ve ever written before.
And then you’ll take the boy into the doctor and discover he has bronchitis and an ear infection and swollen glands.
And then you’ll tell your email to bugger off because you want to watch another episode of Doctor Who.
And then the baby will get sick.
And then you’ll dig out your old Ergo – Babywearing To The Rescue! – and thump her on your back.
And then you’ll go through 36 hours with thirty-pounds of sick baby on your back.
And then it will be a three-ring circus of round-the-clock barfing and coughing and scrubbing and disinfecting.
And then you’ll decide that nurses are severely underpaid and from now on, you’re pro-nurses unions, all the way.
And chances are, by now, it’s been six days since you’ve slept longer than an hour at a time.
And then you’ll start to look around your house and realise that you simply MUST organize the baby clothes situation.
And then you’ll drag every stitch of clothing out and organize it by sizes and pack it into boxes.
And then you’ll do another 18,374 loads of laundry and seriously pray for people who rely on laundromats when they’ve got sick children.
And then you’ll realise that the carpet smells of sick so you’ll cover your house in baking soda and then scrub for hours.
And then you’ll catch the baby nearly climbing out of her old teeth-marked thrice-used crib and have a sleep-disordered panic attack at the thought of her jumping out.
(Because she’s the kind of kid that would totally fling herself out of a crib.)
And then you’ll make your husband dismantle the crib and bring the toddler bed up from storage.
And then you’ll scrub more puke up out of the carpet and turn on an episode of Wild Kratts.
And then you’ll mention how you’d love to put your eldest into her own room and maybe we should do that this weekend.
And then you’ll spend your precious sleep time browsing paint colours and Pinterest bedrooms for little girls.
And then your husband will move all the furniture around on Saturday morning even though two of the three are still down for the count.
And then he’ll pull out the window casings because you’re married to an old-fashioned midwestern hard-worker who likes to do things the right way.
And next thing you know the carpet has been pulled and the ceiling retextured and the room painted.
And chances are that the sick baby won’t like her new toddler bed.
And you’ll begin to realise you are a foolish and sleep-deprived and housebound-crazy woman.
And you’ll kick yourself that you gave your husband a project to do when all you really wanted was someone to tell you to go to bed for a nap.
And then you’ll bath them all again and wash the sheets for the third time that very day.
And then you’ll remember its Superbowl Sunday and your American husband is diligently working instead of complaining about missing the game.
And then you’ll want to kiss him but you’re both too tired and stinky for that.
And then you’ll set up the new bedroom arrangement in a mad pre-bedtime panic to get it done.
And chances are the baby will barf all over her special little blankie.
And then you’ll have to wash both of them and then she won’t go to sleep for a good long time. (Neither will you. Ever.)
And then you’ll go to have a much-anticipated and cherished shower to celebrate making it to the end of another day.
And then you’ll discover there is no hot water.
Because, of course.
And then you’ll resign yourself to waiting until morning and fall into bed for another night of “Mumma, my need ya.”
And when you finally drag your tired self out of bed for the next shift in this never-ending week-of-a-day, you’ll discover the other one has been sick ALL OVER AGAIN.
And then you’ll seriously consider an exorcist.
And suddenly it will occur to you that you just dismantled the crib and for the first time in nearly seven years, there isn’t a baby here anymore.
And chances are, you’ll sit right down and cry and cry and cry about how they’re all growing up too fast.
And then suddenly you won’t mind the past week quite so much.
