Huh?

I drive home, bleary eyed, with visions of my children running toward me in slow motion, their faces streaming with tears of joy. What I in fact arrive home to are two very casual children who act as if I've been gone five minutes instead of a week, a dog (and now cat) with diarrhea and an absent husband who is dealing with an emergency at the lake house.

Jack walks up to me and gives me a "hey, mom"/ hug/ slap on the shoulder/ what did you get me/ look and I find Makena in her room. It takes two "Meimeis" to get her to look up, at which point she says, "hi, mommy" and goes back to her Little Mermaid video. I was expecting to be punished for my absence, I didn't expect it to be so slyly lethal.

The tell tale sign that their aloofness is in fact an act is that Makena decides to remain attached to my hip for the next two hours and that Jack just isn't cooperating about going to bed. I am wiped out. My eyeballs are dry and I feel very lightheaded.

I wake up around five in the morning, fully dressed, with Makena wrapped around me; legs, arms, everything. I guess I must have put her to bed and ended up spending the night right where I was. The next thing I realize is that my throat is sore. I can barely swallow and my ear won't equalize. Ugh. A cocktail of too much freedom combined with jet lag and pain leaves me shaken and stirred

I spend Tuesday having the horses shod and taking the animals to the vet. I spend the rest of the week in child chauffeur mode, coughing and feeling pathetic until EM can't stand it anymore and orders me to see a doctor.

I begrudgingly drag my derriere to our local urgent care to be told that I have bronchitis and that the "equalizing" problem is an ear infection. I leave with prescriptions for antibiotics, prednisone and an inhaler. I guess I was sick after all. The revelation actually cheers me up because I was beating myself up for not having more energy and not being able to get everything done. I'm sick!

Is-on the mend