Strep etc.

Can someone please explain to me why when I’m home with a sick kid they either throw up on me multiple times or they have something like pink eye where they actually feel fine but are contagious and must be quarantined. When Manuel is home on the other hand he gets the kid who has a nice mild case of strep and is happily reading in her bed very psyched to have a day at home with her Dad, just feverish enough to be a cuddly and malleable but not actually miserable. So far we’ve had three cases of strep in the last two weeks and presumably cases four and five (Jonathan and I) will come just after Manuel leaves for Brazil on Sunday night. Jonathan may be spared as the fact of his sisters illness already causes him great pain to the tune of a one hour tantrum last nigh because he could not possibly go to school without “my companion”

Strep aside I had seriously divine twenty-four hours to myself. (thanks mom and Manuel) and made more progress on my book in one day than I often do in a week. I can’t remember the last time I actually had that much time with no one to take care of and it’s amazing how that brain space can help with visualizing a larger argument. I’m also probably made great progress on raising our heating bill—the first thing I did when Manuel and the kids left was crank the heat way up. I did have a few minor interruptions to do important things like buy new running shoes and have rock band practice. When They got back the kids asked if I had been lonely and if I had gone to the bus stop. (lonely is not in the vocabulary of a mother of three small children)

This was coming off a rather exhausting weekend, which began with one of the more shall we say unique gigs of my life. In short, I found myself in a pavilion sporting a cocktail dress, talking about Thomas Jefferson and playing a Marcello sonata on the viola and accompanying a grad student singing Jefferson Satires to the tune of the Star Spangled Banner on the piano. (The grad student was great) As it turns out if you don’t play piano much a few stanzas of Francis Scott key can do your little wrists in. There was also fortified wine in Jefferson cups involved. We also took the kids to ladino music. The boys made it through about ten minutes of this cultural experience. But Rebecca found it very “moving” and very primly introduced herself to Flori Jaggoda and explained that the entire second grade had sung her Hanukah song. The low point was probably Eli turning his water bottle into a weapon and pointing it at the guy who runs the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities. Rebecca was also responsible that night for one of those bizarre kid juxtapositions.

R:What’s the Holocaust
Me: What do you think it is
R: What time is our soccer game

We chose this year to skip the Tu Bishvat seder in which last year the kids had to look at but not taste about fifteen different kinds of fruit. Jonathan however made up for that at Sunday School. When the rabbi asked how people were like tree his response was “well actually in Norse mythology people descended from trees.”