Unclean!

My wife Sarah has had the flu all week. H1N1 is the likely strain she has according to the doctor. She's been quarantined in our room all week and we've been sending food in, wearing masks, and bleaching every surface of the house-everything but the dog in fact. Our house smells clean now so it's nice. The dog still stinks-is it animal cruelty to douse your dog in Clorox every couple of weeks? Probably so-wouldn't be good for her eyes either I imagine.

Sarah's missed work five days in a row-well four. She went in to work Monday and left early because her body ached all over. We got her some Tamiflu and codeine cough syrup and hunkered down.

Her sickness makes me realize how much I rely on her. I can't imagine having to be a single parent. If you are one and happen to read this blog-YOU ROCK! Nuttin' but love for ya.

I could rant and whine a bit about the difficulty of getting the kids ready on my own-bathing them nightly, brushing teeth, feeding them, picking them up from school-watching them in the evening even having to take them to work a couple of nights. But like Chris Rock says "People are stupid when they try to get credit for things they're SUPPOSED to do". His examples were someone saying "I take CARE of MY kids." "You're SUPPOSED to take care of your kids." "I ain't NEVER been to jail". "You're not SUPPOSED to go to jail."

So I've done nothing particularly spectacular other than gain the perspective that I need my wife and miss her. That and being a single parent is probably deserving of some form of award or coupon or something.

The hardest part isn't help with the kids-it's not being able to hug Sarah,or kiss her, or even touch her. Lousy to have the person you love nearby without being able to show them the affection you feel. The girls have done something cool-they said "Mommy I'm giving you a mental hug" and then Chloe closed her eyes and thought about hugging her mom. Sarah returned the action. Phoebe is throwing kisses-not blowing throwing. She grabs at her mouth as she kisses and throws it to mommy through the doorway and Sarah returns the favor. It's cute to me and makes me smile.

As difficult as this has seemed to be-we're not in a country divided by war, we're not having to struggle to survive, and any other number of things I could list. This sickness will pass and many people have illnesses that don't. So we're good-a few days of adjustment that's all.

So a big thank you to Jesus for helping us through the week (he folded some laundry and did some dishes on top of the whole all loving, knowing, and seeing thing). Thanks to anyone who's been praying in response to my sort of desperate Facebook status updates. Interesting that Google and Yahoo have not put the word "Facebook" in their spell check engines.

Anyway-hope you're household has avoided the flu, and if you get it I hope it goes away quickly and that you don't have to overuse bleach and give mental hugs....unless of course you just want to.

Grace and peace to you and yours,
Dwight