Silver Lining

Things are not particularly good. In fact, things are quite bad. In fact, I'd say I'm reaching the end of my rope. Kids are better, but not better, that is, improved, but not well. M went to school yesterday, but they called me at work to come get her around 1:00, just as I was in the middle of something important (of course I dropped important work and went to get her--what kind of mom do you think I am?). E went to preschool but was a weeping wreck for the rest of the day.

Oh, and did I mention that E's sitter is sick? And one of S's line cooks totalled his car--the cook's car, not S's. (What does this have to do with me, you wonder. Nothing, it just means that S is even less available. Luckily my intact humanity was confirmed by the fact that I responded to the news with "Is he ok?" not "How could he do this to me?") Needless to say, work remains a catastrophe. In successive phone calls yesterday, poor S got yelled at, then sulked at, then lectured and instructed to bring me something nice--which he did: orange cake with chocolate glaze and marmalade filling on white chocolate Grand Marnier cream drizzled with chocolate sauce and garnished with raspberries. The upside of marriage to a chef.

But though all I really want to do is whine and weep, instead I'm going to write about the one positive thing that has come out of being house-bound with the flu forever.

We spent part of last year in London. I worked and S hung with the girls. We didn't know anyone and didn't really make any effort to meet anyone, since we were just there for a few months. M and E would play with other kids at the playground, but that was about the extent of our social life. We didn't mind our isolation a bit, though. We had a great time, the four of us, or three of us, or two of us, depending on the day's configuration.

M and E got along like a house on fire (ok, there's another one of those phrases that just popped out of the ends of my fingers--I have no idea whether it means what I want it to mean, or what it means, for that matter, but there it is). We had rented a house from a family with a five-year-old boy, so there were lots of unfamiliar toys and videos, and they played for hours: blocks, grocery store, restaurant, hospital. In the morning, they would snuggle up in bed and M would read to E. They pretended to be puppies and ate bowls of cereal on the floor without using their hands. After dinner, S and I would sit at the table and drink wine and talk, while they ran off to play for hours.

Then we returned to America and M went back to school and E went back to her sitter, and then it was summer and M joined the swim team and they hung out with the gang of kids on the block, and it all kind of dissipated. They squabbled some, but mainly M had no time for E and E was pretty sad about it. It's hard when the big sister who rocks your world is 4 1/2 years older than you.

But now they've been alone in the house together for over a week. At first they just lay limply next to each other in the bed, barely able to summon up the energy to argue over the remote control. Then they squabbled a lot, blasting each other with the frustrations of slow recuperation. For the last three days, though, they have been bosom buddies: playing school, drawing, dressing up in each other's clothes, moving furniture for reasons unbeknownst to me. It won't last, I'm sure, but seeing it return gives me faith that it will return again.

[Oh god, please don't let me turn into a cheesy mom blog. Though perhaps that would be preferable to a whiny mom blog.]

[That was god as expletive, not god as interlocutor.]