This Random Act Of Motherhood Was Brought To You By The Streptococcus Bacteria

So, honey, how was your day?

Because I spent most of mine trapped in our house with the deranged Pod Preschooler who has taken possession of The Boy.

Some background: his day care has been under siege from an especially nasty strain of strep throat that has infected twelve out of twenty-two kids so far. Going anywhere near his classroom will net you a full body-cavity search followed by a Purell hosedown. As a parting gift, you’ll get some leaflets with photos of disgusting, pussy, inflamed tonsils.

The Boy seemed like he would survive the attack. No sore throats, no fevers. And then came Monday morning, where he was just completely getting his bitch on, the centerpiece of which was a grand mal, put-me-on-the-cover-of-Us Weekly tantrum evoking classic Britney Spears. Faced with his vein-popping rage, I had a moment where I feared that instead of a human child, I had actually birthed the second coming of Rosemary’s Baby. Only our trusty local Catholic priest (or a strep test) would reveal the truth.

Two throat swabs later, we got the results: The Boy was, in fact, a Hot Zone. Twenty-four hours of antibiotics were required before we'd be given the all clear to send him back to the kid kennel. Which left two schedule-crazed parents engaged in the latest round of our recurring career deathmatch, jockeying to see which one of us would have to bail out on work. I was forced to concede that most of my stuff could be handled over the phone, and left a late-night voicemail alerting The Boss that he would be deprived of the pleasure of my company in the office the following day.

The Boy had been mostly asymptomatic, so he wasn't in much discomfort from the infection. HIS misery was caused by a side effect of the treatment, a stomach ache that kept him up until almost midnignt. MY misery was caused by the fact that he still woke up at the same time he does every day, which is roughly a quarter of way too freaking early. This put him in an emotional state more volatile than a sleep-deprived reality show contestant who thinks he's about to get voted off the island.

So we passed the morning in a haze of shared manic-depressiveness. One minute my diagram of the immune system (with Ms. Pac-man as a white blood cell, gobbling up dot-sized germs) had him cackling like a miniature Jack Nicholsen; the next he was weeping helplessly because I cut up his waffle for him when he wanted to do it himself. Between 10:00 and 10:37, we played a game that he made up which consisted of me spelling the word "pool" over and over and over and over and over. The game finally ended when my voice cracked from the strain, causing him to ask, "Mommy, are you crying?" (My answer: "Not yet.")

I made a few pointless attempts at trying to work. I'd put him in front of the TV and go off to make a phone call; on any regular workday, nobody answers their phones anymore, especially since they can see my name and extension in their caller ID. But we have caller ID blocker on the home phone, which tricked a lot people into actually answering, at which point The Boy's Spidey-sense would start tingling and he would run immediately into the office to loudly sing random songs from Alvin and The Chipmunks while I flapped my arms like some giant, mentally unhinged pelican, trying to get him to go back to the room with the TV.

After a few repeats of that routine, The Boy was on the verge of going nuclear, so I finally gave up. It had been raining all day, but there was a break in the bad weather, and I herded him outside with some vague idea that I’d tire him out by making him take a long bike ride.

The streets were quiet, and it felt like we had the whole neighborhood to ourselves. He was pedaling with as much strength as he could wring from his spindly little legs, and I was run-walking beside him, and both of us were shouting and laughing. And it sounds so corny but at one point he actually stopped and got off of his bike to pick me a flower. He ran back over to me, looking ridiculously adorable in his Minnesota Twins t-shirt, plaid shorts, mismatched socks, and shiny red satin cape (because only superheroes can fight the forces of germs) with his Optimus Prime helmet all cockeyed on his head, and he handed me the scraggly little dandelion and said, "You're the BEST mommy ever."

I’d like to leave us there, basking in that unexpectedly carefree moment, before I blow the mood by describing the spontaneous combustion that happened when we got back to the house and I had the audacity to MICROWAVE his leftover pizza instead of WARMING IT IN THE OVEN, and I was making The Boy have THE WORST DAY EVER, on PURPOSE, you MEAN MEAN MOMMY. And I certainly won’t go on to describe how he then whacked me in the temple with a toy car, leaving a Lightning McQueen-shaped welt that I had to explain to every single person in the office, who all felt compelled to ask, “Hey, what happened to your head?” at work the next day.

So I won’t do that. I’ll just end this painfully boring post with a silent salute to whichever kid sneezed in The Boy’s face and gave him the strep. Because my 24 hours of (intermittently) painful quantity time produced one of those rare moments of quality that never seems to happen when you try to force it through some planned family activity. I wound up today with one of those special kid memories to lock up in my vault, and it didn’t even require any airbrushing.