I’m gonna go out on a limb here, but I don’t think men are the big babies women make them out to be when they’re sick.
Nope.
They’re big babies when WE are sick.
When we’re sick, I mean really ill, it’s hard on the little guy.
Not because he feels bad for you. I mean, he does. He loves you and all. And not because he sees his beloved in pain and he can’t do anything to help her. Which hurts him, too.
No. You being sick is hard on your guy because now he has to do all your shit.
And that terrifies him.
I recently had a bout of strep throat, followed by pneumonia and laryngitis. I’m sure this was brought on by the aligning of the planets conspiring against me to meet a deadline for a new book I’m coauthoring with my Indie Book Collective cofounders on self-publishing. The writing gods decided nope, enough was enough and I needed to rest. (Well, actually that was my doctor.)
Two days complete bed and voice rest. No work, no speaking. Not even a whisper.
Do you know how hard it is not to whisper to your husband and two small children when you have a house to run? Clothes to wash? A kitchen to clean? Little bodies to bathe? A five-year-old with non-stop questions? (But where IS your voice exactly, Mama? Did you throw it away?)
My body and voice may have needed rest, but my mind was on overdrive. So much to do!
JP was also on overdrive…freak out overdrive, that is. He kept peppering me with questions I LITERALLY could not answer and that, to be honest, shouldn’t he have known? The butter is in the frig. Yes, honey I promise. The Children’s Tylenol is in the cabinet where we always keep it. Yes, honey, it’s a good idea to bathe the five-year-old after he’s been out in the muddy backyard.
Why was his Refrigeratoritis acting up when I was the one in bed?
I’m thinking he thought the same thing because later that evening I came out to make tea and he was sound asleep on the sofa at 6:30pm. The kitchen was a complete disaster and neither child had been fed dinner.
My two days of bed rest were over in four hours.
Sigh.
Really, it’s just so important for husbands to have a routine.
(I hate to think what a walk on the beach might have done.)
Apparently, the added burden of him taking on basically everything (for those four hours) was more than he could handle and he was done for. Don’t get me wrong. He’s a good dad & I give him major dad credit for effort.