nixtress's Diaryland Diary

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the labors of a mother on Labor Day

Don't come a-visitin' to my house, y'all. It's Land of the Nasty right now. Really. I'm not exaggerating. My sons have taken turns vying for the bathroom, and are taking bets on who's tummy hurts worse right now. And if you've never seen a toilet relay, you're truly not missing much. The water dept. is going to love me this next month, what with all the laundry and washing up I've been doing today.

It's like having two mini-Mt. St. Helen's on my hands. From about every orifice they have!

I know, you're all groaning the TMI song, but I have to get this out of my system somewhere! My own sort of..regurgitation, if you will.

Now that you're thoroughly ill, let's move onto the story, shall we?

I was called home from work at 5 a.m. by a phone call fraught with desperation. It would appear that my sons woke up at almost the same instant and both erupted. I came home, and armed them with bucket and tub, and cool washcloths to boot. And literally every 15 minutes or so, the song drifting through our home was one of pain and tummy-turbulence. Keep in mind that I'd worked almost an entire third shift and hadn't slept since yesterday morning. At 9 am or so, I found myself cat-napping on the couch, with sons finally resting. Par for the course, once one end settled a bit, the other began it's business. I won't go into the horrid details. Just know that there will come a day when I will remind them of this. When they're overcome with teenaged angst, and pulling against parental guidance, I'll bring them back to this day, and to all that a mother does for her children.

We've finally gotten to the point where tummies have settled enough for me to function in other areas, and it's slowly coming back under order.

And I'm thinking food poisoning. There's been no fever, and I can't think of anything else that would have them both up and in agony at almost the exact same moment. They spent the better part of yesterday with my aunt at her lake house and then at the Melon Festival in Milan (Birthplace of Thomas Edison). And being the spoiling aunt/adopted grandmother that she is to the boys, she let them eat anything and everything. It crossed through my mind that THAT might be the dastardly cause of their illness, the mixing of complete and total junk. However, I'd have thought it would have hit them much sooner than this morning. So with everything combined, I'm thinking food poisoning. They're both tolerating fluids well, NOW, and have emerged from their individual fetal positions. I think I see the light at the end of the bucket.

In other news, it's been pouring rain since the middle of last night. All those Ohioans who thought they were going to have a nice Labor Day cookout were sadly mistaken, I think. We were supposed to have a nice long Labor Day parade here and I have no idea if it actually went off in spite of the rain. I was too busy holding heads over basins to even listen for the bands. I'm watching the raindrops hit the wood of my picnic table on the back deck. And it's like watching them hit a lake or a puddle. Instead of a splatting, it's more of an absorption. You can actually see the flow of water evening out with each drop.

The deer have begun coming regularly on my back hill. There's a tiny little clearing where you can catch the little ones nesting down every now and again. They like to come down and steal my apples from the tree and the remaining grapes from the vine. Darling little fawns with their pristine spots and small does with their wet eyes.

Wild Ohio, in my backyard.

I hope everyone had a lovely weekend. Mine was eventful, at least. All jumbled.

N.

5:34 p.m. - 2003-09-01

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