The Sick Circle

You may have wondered shy I did not blog last week, well, I had a cold! In fact we all are still sick, Jonathan, my husband and I can become a coughing orchestra! Especially at night! The doctors said it's just a virus and we have to wait it out! So there is no treatment and unfortunately it still keeps us all up at night!

Every family with small children must have had to go through the “Sick Circle”. A member of the family catches a cold and then all the others get the disease as if by turn. First child No. 3 then daddy, then child No.1 then mom and then child number 2 and then daddy again, and then mom again and so the circle goes on! Children that attend a kindergarten tend to get sick more often, because the “Sick Circle” also wreaks havoc in groups of children, with germs freely passed on from child to child. (No matter how clean the kindergarten is, there is no preventing babies from snatching pacifiers from each other and stuffing them in their mouths, germs and all...).

There is nothing more annoying for a woman than a sick husband! Men suffer so when they are sick. For a mother this is doubly annoying because when the father is sick there is no chance for any assistance with the kids. A virus brings down a grown man with very little effort! Sick men are so centered in how bad they are feeling that nothing else counts. Just this week my husband got a nasty cold (yes, I admit it was nasty) and informed me that should he die, I must promise him that Jonathan would still see his grandparents (explanation: my husband's parents live in Germany whereas we live in Israel). I naturally made the promise, but this did not lesser my husbands acute sufferings...coughing and blowing one's nose regularly is not pleasant (but neither is it life threatening...)

The only situation that is harder than living with a man who has a cold is having one yourself at the same time! When a man is sick, all that matters to him is his swollen nose. If his wife happens to suffer the same symptoms at the same time, he still thinks he has it worse! As a mother, even though all I wanted to do is lye down I had to care for my boy as I do every evening! Feeding, bathing and playing are the order of the day! And my husband just slouches on the couch, totally centered in how bad he is feeling! With Jonathan also sick, you can add a bit of concern to my difficulties.

The positive thing is that Jonathan is absolutely adorable! Even when he is sick he is happy and playful! And so, even if I have no voice to greet him in the morning (lost it coughing the night before...) I am still greeted with the biggest of smiles when I come to his bedroom in the morning. The boy is all happiness! The sun is shining and the birds are singing in his world because mommy is here! The occasional cough just does not seem to bother him as much as it bothers me that he coughs! Jonathan is taking his sickness lightly, making it a lot easier for me to care for him. In such moments as these I believe adults have a lot to learn from their children. I fear that as a member of the male sex the wonderful characteristic of Jonathan's (having a good mood even when he is sick) will eventually disappear, after all my son will also one day be a man, and sick men are insufferable! (Have I already mentioned that?) My only hope is that then his wife will be stuck with a man who has a cold...