Saturday morning, my eyes popped open at their usual time of around 6:30 or 7, Logan and Ryan could already be heard having a fabulous round of Mario Karts, Adam could be heard stirring in his room, and I could hear rain beating on the window outside.

It seemed like a typical Saturday until I sat up and realized something was just not quite right.

I was sick.

I don’t get sick that often. Really, I never have. I seem to have been blessed with an amazing immunity that helped me stave off the chicken pox until I was 13, fight off zillions of random illnesses when I was a preschool teacher, and has kept me from calling in Mom Sick Days for the most of the 8 and 1/2 years I’ve held this job.

So here I was, on a Saturday no less, with a mile long shopping list, a birthday party one of my children was supposed to attend (no present bought yet, being the procrastinator that I am), and a weather forecast that was suggesting that we were going to get so much snow, Santa and his reindeer might actually show up on our rooftops.

And I could do no more than put my feet on the floor and realize that was as far as I was going to get. For the next 12-14 hours, I would be a slave to the stomach flu.

This is where Rob is really a great person…a great husband, a great dad.

And this is where my shortcomings are painfully obvious.

Rob, unlike me, is not blessed with that amazing immunity I possess, which means that frequently, he is stricken with strep, suffering from intense allergies or most recently, recovering from an ear infection.  Sometimes this means he takes to his bed.

And I am not at my best during these times.

The most he could ask for from me when he is sick is that I’ll completely ignore him, save for maybe a few times I’ll peek in to make sure he isn’t dead (because then I’d REALLY be ticked).  More than likely I might grumble about him being in my space (if it happens to be a workday) or complain that HIS illness is some cruel joke being played at MY expense, as if I don’t have enough to deal with, now I’ve got a sick adult to add to my to do list.

It’s wrong, I know. I also know that my attitude  is unfortunately a popular one with wives, and I’m guessing in particular with Stay At Home Moms, judging from many many conversations I’ve had with my friends and even my pediatrician (him being a man himself))…”there’s nothing worse than Sick Daddy” (and that’s not usually spoken sympathetically).

Then all of a sudden it’s my turn to get sick and the tables are turned on me.

But if Rob was annoyed or irritated with me and my affliction, I never picked up on any of it. There was no heavy sighing whenever he came in to see how I was doing, no asking if I was ever going to get up, no grumbling about how much work he was doing. None of that. The boys got dressed and fed, the grocery shopping got done, the house stayed reasonably picked up, the birthday party got attended (in the middle of a blizzard, mind you),  all three boys got entertained by Dad within an inch of their lives, and even I got waited on now and then with crackers and ginger ale and genuine concern for my well being.

Unfortunately, more than I offer the poor man when he is down.

So…thanks Rob, I owe you one.

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