I'm home from Church because of illness. But not mine, of course. The invalid in question is Yvette . She's snotty and coughing, so she's too sick to be allowed to mingle freely with the congregation (which is what she does on Sundays, that little social networker). But she's not so sick that she's laying mildy and limply in bed. No. She's up and crabby and in my face and in every one's space. She woke George up from his nap (after he'd been asleep for only 20 minutes!) so now he's crabby too. Mark took the four oldest to Church (I wonder how that is going, him on the stand and them on their own on the bench...), so I don't have any helpers. Just the crabby little people.
There are two kinds approaches for this: A) you're not too sick to function, suck it up and keep on keeping on. OR B) you're a walking infection, stay home and keep it to yourself.
I grew up with the A approach. We had to be practically on our death bed before we were allowed to shut down and stay home from school, Church, or get out of doing our chores. It has taken me some very embarrassing and frustrating experiences to see the perspective of the B approach, and to respect it, and even implement it.
Yesterday, I was chatting with a friend in Maryland, and she was venting about just this situation. She's one of the B approach people, and the A approach people are driving her nuts. And because of the "suck it up" A approach people like me, her two little girls have been in and out of ear infections, on and off antibiotics and so on for the last six weeks. So, that conversation was fresh in my memory when Yvy woke up this morning, coughing a nasty, croupy cough, and super-irritable.
No one's Sabbath day worship is dependant on my presence at Church, thus I am home with
Little Miss Sunshine
and Junior Crab-apple Man:
Amber the A approach person doing the responsible B approach thing.
It's a task to remember it's Sunday when I have to stay home. I'm streaming BYU Radio's Sunday instrumental mix, and trying to resist the urge to clean my house. Because that is decidedly NOT a Sabbath day activity (is blogging a Sunday activity?), but I'm going to have to put blinders on to ignore it. Although it's better than it was yesterday. Mark spent almost the whole day folding laundry and ironing. Yes, ironing! For like three hours straight.
And this is probably too much information, but I think that's the sexiest thing ever.
5 comments:
Thank you for being type B today! I have stayed home this Sunday, last Sunday, and will probably stay home this Sunday because of the "A" approach. I'm diabetic, pregnant and on insulin, and have had the stomach virus three times in the past month. After several near trips to the hospital with plummeting blood sugar, we are staying out of the public eye as much as possible until it all blows over.
Then there are people like my father, who has to stay home the entire winter even if he felt well enough to go to church because of type A people. There was even the time when a hometeacher wanted to come over to his house while he (hometeacher) was sick with the flu!
I guess it's all relative where a person is in their life to how they feel about it. I can respect the "going to church at all costs" mentality, but in my current situation I'd prefer they stay home and keep their germs to themselves!
Oh, I have to agree. There's nothing as sexy as a man doing housework. Not flowers, chocolates, romantic dinners out, nothing!
I'm with you on the sick thing -- I used to drag us all out no matter WHAT -- and then I learned that people generally do not thank you for that. Hope everyone gets better ASAP!
I love you for posting this, Amber! I'm tempted to copy and paste it to my blog... heh. Consider yourself bear-hugged for like 10 minutes!
I posted your entry on my blog, I hope that's okay! Let me know if not... :)
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