Dear Diary,

Well, we made it to week 3 before Kid #3 brought home the first cold of the season. Adult Kid, a.k.a. Kid #1, doesn’t even start college for another week or two. Still, that’s three times as long as last December, when the kids were back for ONE WEEK after the month-long teachers strike and one of them brought home COVID. At least this isn’t COVID.

Will this be the kind of cold that blows through the house where everyone is miserable at the same time, or will it perpetually linger, slowly infecting each of us, one at a time? On one hand, getting it over and done with so we can move on sounds lovely, but it’s no fun trying to take care of others when feeling sick, especially as I am from the “leave me alone and let me hibernate so I can sleep this sickness off and get better quicker” camp as opposed to the “I feel awful and I want to be taken care of because love heals all illnesses” camp. I don’t doubt that love does heal illness, but I JUST WANT TO BE LEFT ALONE! You can love me from the other room! Just make sure there’s plenty of cough drops and tissues, and we’re golden.

Of course, it’s inevitable that a “hibernator” and a “take care of me” are bound to be significant others, which complicates things when everyone gets sick at the same time. And you live in a small house. With one bathroom. There’s nowhere for the “hibernator” to escape to, besides the shared bedroom. The “take care of mes” (take care of me’s? me-s? I have succeeded in confusing the English language with my need to pluralize the word me) are like snot zombies that perpetually want to cuddle and keep needing things, like water, and food, and medicine. So you give them the medicine, and suddenly they’re CONVINCED they’re no longer sick. They feel GREAT! For four to six hours. Then the medicine starts wearing off, and they remember how TERRIBLE they really felt and maybe they shouldn’t have run that marathon and should have rested instead, LIKE THE “HIBERNATOR”!!!

I do have one “hibernator” child. I love it when he gets sick. I mean, I don’t LOVE him getting sick, but I do love that WHEN HE DOES gets sick, he’ll actually go to bed and rest. No fuss, no muss. If he says he’s dying, I can trust that he is indeed dying. If he’s in pain, he really does need to go to the hospital and have his appendix removed, all while acting totally chill to the point that the ER nurse doubts the appendicitis until he gets up and does the “appendicitis shuffle”.

Anyway, here’s hoping this cold doesn’t ruin the first week of school for Adult Kid. Adult Kid managed to avoid COVID the three times it showed up in our house, so I think the odds are pretty good. Besides, the teens are usually good at “self-quarantining” and by “self-quarantining” I mean they naturally spend most of their free time in their rooms.

I, on the other hand, will be in the war zone, dispensing the medicine, the water, the food, and the cuddles, until the germs invade my body and turn me into the “hibernator”, and then I’ll still dispense the medicine, water, food and cuddles, while longingly looking at my bed, dreaming of a sleepy escape.