When we lived in Louisiana I never just had three kids. I had four or five or six... Someone was always calling to say,"Hey, I need to...Can you watch...?" Occasionally a friend or relative would call from my own driveway and ask to drop off a munchkin. It was taken for granted that, barring illness or personal calamity, the answer would be, "Yes, of course. Bring the little darlings over." The system was beneficial to me as well because I was also at liberty to deposit my own darlings at one of their houses, when needed, and often at very little notice.
After we moved, my house got quiet. I found that I missed the noise. I only had three children. How very strange and lonely and dull it was.
With this in mind, we were thrilled when friends Hayley and Steve called to say they had vacation time and could they come for a visit? "When? How soon? How long can you stay?" we asked. "Please, please come."
What fun to show our old friends our new home. To hear the accents of home. A cut-throat game of Scrabble (girls rule!) after the kids are in bed. Steve: "Took" T-U-K, Hayley: "Umm, NO." Playing on Mud Island. Swimming at the Y. How wonderful it was to once more have a house full of happy children. Life was good again.
Until the virus came. One by one they fell. The house party turned into a sheet-washing, floor-mopping, medicine-taking, Gatorade-sipping frenzy. Eleven people in the house. Eight people sick. Two bathrooms. The washing machine ran from 4am until 12am the next morning. Oh, the utter horror of it all.
The men, naturally, were the sickest. Why is that?
Two days and a very large pot of chicken soup later, "the Hayleys," as Tiger calls them, were off, like a herd of turtles. They headed home and the house was quiet.
Was it worth it? Was it worth cleaning, the sleep deprivation, the Motrin? The early morning run to Walgreens for Pedialyte and Imodium? For that little taste of home, the answer is yes. A thousand times, yes. So pass the bucket, friends, and laissez-les bons temps rouler! We are open for visits.
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