Where Does It All Go?

Yesterday Bob stayed home to help the rest of us recover enough to get through the weekend without him. Beth has had the worst of it being completely down (laying, asleep) three separate days and barely functional in between. Gabi's is still hanging around, although at this point it is mostly a cough. The boys had it hit two days ago, and so did I. So far I'm still eating, although not much, and I'm controlling the headache with painkillers.

I went to bed last night thinking I'd get one more night of good sleep before the marathon weekend started. Peter, although "sleeping", was up because he was having trouble breathing from being congested most of the night. He was still asleep beside me when Bob had to get up so I thought I'd get a little extra sleep then....

Enter Jeremy. "I'm thirsty and hungry"

So he melts down when he finds out Daddy will be getting him some breakfast and thus Peter wakes up. Peter is not about to sleep now that he knows it's morning and time for food. Both boys are given half of a child-size bowl of cereal, neither ate more than a couple of spoonfuls.

In all this, Gabi comes down stairs. Seems to be fine, aside from the horrid cough. Bob is getting ready to leave for the day. We say family prayers, hugs go around, and eventually out the door goes Dad.

No sooner did that happen then Gabi goes into melt down mode! Whining, fusing, now her eye hurts, the washcloth isn't helping, she just wants a bath (which she can have when Beth wakes up)...so she's crying at the top of her lungs... in a forced way!

Meanwhile, my head is pounding, I feel like my stomach is on the ocean, and I'm so tired I have little patience for excess and unnecessary noise! So, after talking this through with Gabi (who is, by far, the most healthy of us sick ones since she came down with it first a week and a half ago) I continue to get things like:

"Nothing is helping! I want Bethie to get up! I want Daddy home to take care of me! I can't take care of myself when I'm sick!"

Amazing! She cleaned house all day with Dad yesterday! She was perfectly happy and fine until Dad's car pulled out of the drive-way! So tell me, where does all the normal sanity and get-up-and-go disappear to? What is so magical about Daddy that people can be normal, happy, fine, helpful, patient when he's here and then crumple into a heap, being totally helpless, competing for mom's attention when he's gone?

At some point there will be quiet again... probably tonight when everyone goes to bed.... maybe we'll all be in bed by 6! Wishful thinking... but we all could use it!