Evil Mother

Last week, I took care of my husband's nephew. He was the ideal guest in most ways. He listened to me better than my own children, cleaned his plates and slept amazingly well on our couch. Aside from forcing me to speak French a lot more than I'm used to at home (which can be very tiring, in case you didn't know this), though, he also came fully equipped with a very runny nose. Apparently, he was on the healing end of a flu or some such virus. Don't know about you, but I'm not too into wiping other people's noses, myself. When it's you're own children, it's okay, but someone else's doesn't quite seem right. Anyway, aside from the gross-out factor, it seems to have taken a toll on me. Specifically, it has turned me into Evil Mother (Don't worry, I will spare you the photos. It's not a pretty sight.). I know you're wondering how wiping someone else's nose could really be that bad, especially since he's no longer staying with us. Well, I'll tell you. I've turned into to Evil Mother because of the flu that he was so generous as to pass on to me.

Remember I mentioned that my husband was spending several days at a wine show? I may not have mentioned that these things are all-day events. What does this mean for me? It means that I get the kids all to myself from sun-up to way past sun-down. Normally, this can be a bit stressful when it's several days in a row, but add a flu to it, and this is how you get Evil Mother. She's not like the normal Mean Mommy that we see from time to time. She doesn't just have the normal yell. She's got the scratchy-voiced yell that freaks out the children. Then, of course, the exhaustion caused by her near-exploding head being too much for her, she bursts into tears, further scaring her offspring. That's pretty much how we spent our evening yesterday. First I had the 2-year-old telling me I was scary. Then, I had the four-year-old (apparently much more mature than her mother) soothing me and coaxing me back to the dinner table with them. Oh, yeah. We had ourselves a full evening last night.

The upshot to all this, though, is that today, despite the fact that my head is inexplicably even fuller-feeling than yesterday, and I kept the kids cramped up inside all day, things went smoother. I only had to mention the Evil Mother that popped up yesterday, and things calmed down. Don't think I'm proud of that - threatening my children with a rerun of yesterday's fit where we somehow switched rolls, and I was the child while they were much more grown-up than I. Okay, I wasn't really lording it over them today. It was more like I was just warning/reminding them of what could happen, since I'm so low on patience in this state.

So, my advice to you is this: Don't let this happen to you. Get your flu shots before you, too, turn into Evil Mother(/Sister/Wife/Girlfriend/Daughter...).