Tuesday, January 20, 2009

aligned

This morning, at 4:37, Peanut began a puking marathon that would not let up until noon. The retching was fast and furious, as was the pile of laundry accumulating on the floor of the garage in front of the washing machine. I myself have not slept for some days now, due in large part to a stomach flu that took out my two stalwart school-age children last week and a nasty fever that has afflicted the toddler since Sunday. The feverish tot thrashes in bed next to me in his sleep and between the thrashing and my trying, largely unsuccessfully, to keep his hand out of his pants in order to keep pee off of my sheets, I have not slept. Last night was better-- the fever lower, thrashing lessened, no other children under duress-- until 4:37 when the vomiting began. When it was finally time to get up and get the Bean, my only (seemingly) healthy child, to kindergarten I reluctantly dragged myself out of bed (to the sound of retching) and poured a bowl of cold cereal for the lucky one who got to leave this den of sickness and unwashed pukey sheets.

At 8:15 I put my Peanut in front of the television and instructed her to call for me when Important Looking People started talking.

Last week husband and I discussed keeping the kids home to watch the inauguration. Mostly, I brought it up and he proceeded to tell me why my idea was bad and all of his points were valid:
The children don't cover this stuff at school yet
The speeches were likely to be longer than their attention spans
The fact that our president is a black man doesn't really need to mean anything to them, yet. Someday, yes, it will be important, but today they don't need to know what a dark and mean place this country can be. Today, this is a place where a little girl close to my own girl's age gets to wear a pretty dress and stand with her Grandma, her Mama, her sister and her Daddy in front of more than a million people who are standing outside in the freezing cold to wish them all luck and let them know that they love them. It's a day when a beautiful woman wears a sparkly gold coat (seriously, I know it's lemongrass eyelet, but on tv, through glassy eyes, it looked sparkly. Maybe it was just because it was Michelle) and her husband maybe flubs his lines a little bit, but it doesn't really matter because today is a special day. It's a gold coat day. It's a staying home in bed sick day. It's a watching tv day and seeing history day. It's a watching your mom cry while she's listening to our new President, shushing the baby and holding your hair back while you vomit day.

It's a new day. And it'll be a new tomorrow.