Sick Men

Why is it that when we women are sick, the show must go on? We struggle through all that we have to do during the day without much complaint, we don't get to crawl into bed and take the rest we so desperately need in order to get better quickly. It takes us longer to get over whatever the aliment and, in my case, can't take anything chemical because of the interference with nursing.

Men on the other hand, are not nursing, so they can take whatever pills they would like when they are sick. They have the option of taking the time to lay in bed and sleep and rest and get better. Yet, they are the biggest babies!! They are the whinniest, laziest, cry-babies in the world!!

Smug-Hub finally caught the head cold that I have had for the last two weeks. Smug-Sister and her husband both have it as well and Smug-Baby was sick for about 6 hours. Smug-Grandma even caught it, so it was really contagious and really hard to get over. He felt it coming on like Wednesday and felt even worse on Thursday. He took Friday off and spent most of the day in bed - all the while taking sinus and head cold medicine!

Saturday, he was feeling better and we went out as a family and did some last minute Christmas shopping, had dinner with friends and drove around to see the Christmas lights. He whinnied the whole time!

Sunday, we had family coming for an early dinner and about 4 million things to try to do before hand. While I ran a few errands, Smug-Hub said that he would clean the kitchen and work on laundry, collect the trash and anything else on the list he could get done before I got home.

When I returned about 2 hours later, he had taken the kitchen trash can bag and set it on the back porch - he called this collecting and taking out the trash. Never mind that the bathroom can was overflowing or that the cans in our bedroom and Smug-Baby's bedroom were getting full!

Beyond this, he had fully taken apart the free-standing cabinet in the kitchen. He told me that the shelf at the top collapsed he it needed to be fully reinforced. Fine. I carried all the pieces to the garage (while he gathered some screws - very strenuous!) Then I spent the next hour, getting the dinner in the oven, cleaning up the clutter around the house, putting clean sheets on the bed, making wipes, folding diapers, sorting laundry and getting it started, wrapped a few Christmas gifts and cleaned off the dining room table.

In that time, he drilled about 12 holes. He had to make a run to Lowes to get some special screws and did that while I put the changed the baby's diaper and put her down for a nap. He brought the parts back up to the kitchen and worked on putting the cabinet back together while I made a salad, made ice tea, got potatoes cooking, set the table, nursed the baby, folded laundry, and opened the wine.

When family arrived, my dad and cousin jumped in to help Smug-Hub complete the assembly while I finished mashing potatoes and getting dinner on the table. The cabinet is complete and once again full of stuff - except for the doors, anyone what to take bets on how many weeks it takes to get those put back on?? How about if I end up having to do it myself??

Dinner was great and everyone raved on the food, which is always wonderful but while I was serving dessert, Smug-Hub starting snapping at me about helping him get the kitchen cleaned up and dishwasher loaded. I told him to leave everything and enjoy our company and our dessert, but he snapped that dessert could wait until the kitchen wasn't such a complete disaster. We worked together, him grumbling and snapping all the way, and got everything put away and cleaned up.

We enjoyed dessert and family and Smug-Baby until everyone had gone and we were all ready for bed. I asked him why he was in such a bad mood and he went off about how sick he was and how he had spent the whole day putting together the stupid cabinet that I had wanted to buy and how it broke because I had filled it with all this heavy crap that I don't even use.

I explained that I had been just as sick and I didn't take it out on him, to which he replied that he was way more sick than I had been and I just needed to deal with him bad mood and put up with him until he felt better.

Smug-Baby was not interested in sleeping and is our arrangement, he stayed up with her and I went to bed, since I have to go to work at 4am. He finally brought her into bed at 11:20 - I couldn't help but feel a little vindicated that he had to stay up and take care of her all on his own while I got some sleep :) Is that evil of me???