Carla got sick this past Saturday afternoon, right before her beloved grandmother was set to arrive. Fever around 103, achy body (why doesn’t the word “achy” have an e in it????), headache, sore throat, the whole thing. She woke up in a panic at midnight, sure she was going to throw up. (Tell it to the toilet, Carla, do not run into my room to alert me in advance!) She did not throw up, but she did lie on a makeshift bed in her bathroom for an hour, and then finally moved to her bed around 2:00. She was unable to take Tylenol because it made her stomach “feel weird,” so she just lay there until eventually she fell asleep. (I couldn’t sleep, of course, with Possible Imminent Barfing. I went to check on her around 4:00 and she was lying on her back, very still, and I thought she was asleep but then she waved at me. Sigh. Poor child.)

The next day, fever. (Which is, perhaps, why I was able to be awake by myself to write a blog post? After being awakened by a vomit alert, it is very hard to fall back to sleep. Also I was deep in denial on Sunday morning that this was a 24-hour bug.) Sore throat. Movies and TV and popsicles. No grandmother. No special dinner at her favorite restaurant. 

Monday, still fever. No appetite. No energy. No school. I posted my Dinners This Week intentions even though I only finally made it to the grocery store yesterday. She continued to test negative for Covid, but I called the pediatrician and learned that he likes to see a child who’s had a fever for three consecutive days. So we went in. He was SURE it was strep but the rapid test was negative. (This is all sounding extremely familiar; I swear we went through this entire rigamarole just a few weeks ago, although there was vomit that time, so this was an improvement.) 

Tuesday, her fever was very low. In fact, it was so low that it might not have existed. When our thermometer said she had a fever of 100.6, the pediatrician’s thermometer said it was 99.3. Low enough for her to go to school Wednesday???? Hard to say. But not low enough for her grandmother to feel comfortable staying at our house, so it seemed pretty wishy washy to allow school. I don’t know. PCR test for strep was negative. Still a negative Covid test. 

Her doctor acknowledged it could be flu, but usually kids with flu were “much more miserable.” She has had very low energy, which is significant for my go-go-go high energy child. But he’s the expert. He said strep is extremely prevalent in the community right now – “the diagnosis of the day,” he said – but also suggested adenovirus, which sounds to my inexpert ears like a fancy way of calling it “just a cold.” She was able to go back to school on Wednesday, and you have never seen a kid happier to be going to school. She woke up promptly, ate nothing (I forced her to eat a small amount of ice cream, just to get some fat/calories into her), and was cheerful and singing all the way to school. I am so glad she is feeling better (although as of this morning, her appetite remains very slim).

But I admit, it was kind of nice to be together. We made the best of our forced period of restfulness. I did lots of laundry. I addressed and stamped our holiday cards and put them in the mail. I wrapped some presents. (My office is turning into Box Central, but I suppose it is only temporary.) I cleaned Carla’s craft area in the basement; she didn’t want to help me, which meant that I had carte blanche to throw away anything and everything I wanted to. This reminds me that I never showed you the After of the craft area we created in the basement last winter. Is that something you would be interested in seeing?   

While we were at home together, Carla and I worked on a (very expensive) craft project. She is making hand-decorated drinkware for her family members. They are turning out SO well. (But seriously, until you make like, 50 mugs, the cost per mug is astronomical.)

We are using her Cricut to print vinyl objects (hearts, stars, bears) and words, and then we are affixing everything to the mugs with dishwasher-safe Mod Podge.

Part of the process involves dumping swirls of nail polish into a tray of water and then dipping a ceramic mug into it. The polish adheres to the mug and it looks so lovely and marbley and gorgeous. And every single mug is unique and special.

Apparently, if you turn a bottle of nail polish upside down to dump its contents into a tray of water, the ball bearings that are inside to mix the polish come out, too. I was pretty glad I noticed that because I’d been pouring the pans of water into the sink after each dip (and after using a paper towel to remove any excess polish). 

Only after I dumped out an entire tray of inedible Trader Joe’s microwave salmon did I discover that I had not, in fact, noticed the ball bearings in time. I did not want to chance breaking my disposal after the last incident!

At least I knew the cause of the horrendous crunching noise my disposal made. I used – what the heck are they called? pinchers? tweezers? oh right! tongs! – tongs to remove the remnants of salmon and spinach and very poorly textured orzo from the disposal. But the tongs were too bulky to pull out the ball bearings. And no way in any universe am I sticking my hand down my garbage disposal. No. Way. 

Carla does, however, have an ancient magnet set. My First Magnets or something. Why we still have it, I do not know… but I’m grateful. I requested that she find me her most powerful magnet – she was of course happy to comply – and used it to fish out the two ball bearings. The disposal works once again. And now Carla knows a) mistakes happen and b) creative thinking is the key to a smoothly running life (and disposal).