Unwritten rules

There seems to be some kind of unwritten rule which states, "Anytime Mommy gets sick, the house goes to pot."

I was reminded of this today. I have been a little sick with the flu for a couple of days. Today I finally started feeling better -- and I kinda started to wish I had an excuse to crawl back into bed. The house was a disaster area.

Spent most of today cleaning and getting the house back in order. I think my back is hurting on account of all the baskets of laundry I was carrying around. Ugh.

But I also found a small window of time to fix up a chapter in the Revisions book. I wanted to add something else to it, but was not able to finish because I couldn't get very good information about this topic on the 'Net. I'll have to either try the library or bookstore to see if I can dig up the information I need.

Also found the time to read a magazine article in the recent issue of the DPPi Journal. I didn't finish reading it, though, because I got a little angry over how the writer kept going on about how deafness is genetic. Hello! I'm living proof that deafness is NOT genetic! So are my kids. I became deaf because I caught an illness that caused my deafness. My children are both hearing children. Of course, that fact may not be sufficient to refute the writer's claim, since I was not genetically rendered deaf, but it's still proof it's not genetic. (I would need to look into this matter further. Back in the day that I was writing for SIGNews, I did come across reports of studies being done to determine if deafness is genetic. I don't recall many of the results the tests showed, so I would need to revisit this to see if there is anything new on the subject.)

There is another unwritten rule about what happens when one person in a family gets sick. Someone else in the family is likely to get sick, too. Jesse woke up at 6 this morning, crying pretty bad. The first thing I noticed about him as I picked him up was that he was VERY HOT! I removed his pajamas (leaving on his onesie), changed him, took his temperature (it was 101!) and gave him Infant Tylenol. After that, I gave him a sippee cup of water and rocked him as he drank from it. When I put him back in bed, he slept for about four hours and seemed to be fine. But I have kept an eye on him today and so far, nothing more serious than a fever.

I'm still feeling pretty yucky -- got some head congestion, sore throat, pain in my neck and minor body aches -- but I'm just glad to be able to think straight again and be aware of my surroundings. It's no fun being sick. And it's also no fun having to clean up a neglected house because of being sick.

Last night, I dreamed that we were on our way somewhere. It was me, my husband and the kids in the car. It was snowing and the streets were covered with snow. At one point, my husband dropped me off at the curb and Jennifer got out of the car to hug me goodbye. I started to walk away then looked back to see her climb back into the car and then as my husband drove them away. I was walking down the sidewalk. I eventually came to a street I recognized. I walked up to the house, full of anticipation. It was my grandmother's house and she was having a Christmas party. The house was beautifully decorated on the outside, with Christmas lights and decorations. I knocked at the door then, as I waited, I hurriedly removed the hair band that held my hair up in a bun. I wanted to put my hair down because I know it looks better down. When my hair is up, my burn scars are showing and they're like THE thing that people see. And people, including family members, have said it looks better when my hair was down. And I started to feel self-conscious about that. I tried to cover my scars with my long hair.

A cousin on my mom's side answered the door. She let me in and I started to greet everyone. It was so wonderful to see everyone again. People I haven't seen in ages. And I was still nervous about my scars. trying to use my hair to cover them up. But they all had an attitude like, "This is how Dawn looks!" None of them cared about the scars.

I didn't see my grandmother in the dream, though. I was making my way through the house to her, but awoke before I got to her. Which made me sad, really. I miss her so much. She passed away over 15 years ago and I still miss her terribly. Sometimes she has been in my dreams, which I am grateful for. I always cherish those dreams I have in which I will see a departed or long-lost loved one.