Heigh-Ho, Heigh-Ho...it's off to work he goes...

My dear man is sick. Really sick. Now normally, I'm unsympathetic to male illness with the best of them. There seems to be very few things as inconvenient and irritating as a sick husband. If you happen to be my husband, you also save your very sickest self for the weekend. Silver lining....he has a good work ethic. VERY rarely misses work. Really...such a plus and hardly a thing to complain about. Can you imagine if I had to kick him out the door every morning?

However, beginning on Tuesday, he had a stomach upset. He was convinced he contaminated his pure belly with gluten, yet I was convinced our house wasn't the source. That evening, he suffered from fever and chills and the pain in his gut. I was shocked and flabbergasted when I rolled over at 6:30 to see him decked out in his nicely pressed blue dress shirt (the nice pressing is his own handy work. I have abdicated the iron.) and sharp black dress pants. Perhaps I should swallow a few of his work ethic pills, because in my book of rules, a fever equals a day off from work. Legitimately so. No...."I have a headache" or "I just don't feel well". A fever is honest-to-goodness proof that the body is fighting infection.

Apparently, his 4:00 am Tylenol dose masked his discomfort and off he went. Of course, he came home feeling totally lousy and was wiped out the rest of the evening.

Wednesday night...same thing. Fever and chills the entire night and yet Thursday morning, it was a khaki button-down and blue dockers.

Thursday night, the fever seemed to go away but here came the sore throat. The fathers/sons camp-out was scheduled for Friday night and Jay mentioned that he should pack that night. I wondered aloud if he should go and he replied that he had promised the boys. He fell asleep early, however, and went to bed without packing. I happen to know a few things and that night, I knew that the camping was highly unlikely to happen. The body can only take so much and heading off to the mountains to set up a tent with men and kids he doesn't know isn't really Jay's cup of tea. I thought perhaps Friday might be the sick day but my man, apparently, must work. Friday morning was no different from the rest. Up and at 'em in a dark blue top and black pants.

Camping didn't happen (the kids never knew the difference) and I snuck out that evening to hang out with Kelly, as I mentioned previously.

Saturday, he continued to fight off whatever nasty bug invaded his body, and I tried to keep the boys out of his hair so that he could rest. Part of me wanted to be annoyed at the loss of extra help and my partner in crime, but the larger part of me honestly felt bad that he still felt so yucky. I was out several nights this last week and felt awful that I had to tell him that I had plans for Saturday night as well. My sister Sarah, had given me her ticket to go see the musical Mamma Mia with her friend's family and since I can't seem to get enough of hanging out with people I hardly know, I committed myself to going.

Jay just sighed and waved good-bye. Even I admit that my taking off in the evenings and leaving him at home is becoming a too-familiar scene. Our boys behaved nobly and apparently acted from memory of the many nights they had to put themselves to bed when I was pregnant with Henry. Jay was impressed and I fear he may have exposed my big secret! Our boys are actually angelic and quite easy. There goes my excuse for not getting anything done.

The musical was awesome. Not musically awesome, because some of the performers weren't very good. I'm always confounded when they aren't great because isn't that a competitive field? Maybe ABBA is really hard to sing but I wasn't super impressed with Sophie. Donna was alright. Sam...good but hilarious to watch. He couldn't sing without dramatic head snaps and chest heaving. Skye was plain awful. It didn't matter. Listening to familiar ABBA all night in a funny play with some great costumes was a great way to spend the evening. Sarah's friend's family was quite good company too.

When I got home, there was a piece of music someone had dropped off for a musical number in Relief Society today. She had called earlier in the afternoon to see if I could be a substitute accompanist but hadn't shown up by the time I left. I wish I could have looked at it but it was almost midnight and I had to respect the shared walls. I woke up this morning and discovered that the accompaniment wasn't very easy. Lots of accidentals and big chord progressions.

Not wanting my musical debut in this ward to be dismal, I came home in between Sacrament Meeting and Relief Society. Jay had finally succumbed to his illness and lay asleep in our bed, wiped out with a fever and headache and cough. I put Henry down for a nap, told Jay that he was there, and went and practiced for a half hour. It worked and I didn't suck. I must mention an interesting tidbit of information. The owner of this townhouse lives in another townhouse in the same building complex so is also in the same ward. During the good news minute, the counselor conducting noticed her smiling and asked her if she had anything to share. She replied, "Not really. I just feel good. My health is good and has been ever since I've lived in my new place the last four months."

She lived where we live. Her health was not good. Hmmmmm.

The weekend is over. I wonder what color of pants Jay will be wearing tomorrow?