Flu + Dad's Cooking = Survival Training

“We are given children to test us and make us more spiritual.” – George Will

There are a number of things nobody told me before I said, “I do.”

Oh sure, we got a lot of nice advice and a lot of nicer money. But Uncle Harry didn’t say, “Here’s $50 and by the way, your children will never throw up on anything but you.”

Aunt Thelma never mentioned, “I hope you enjoy the silver-plated toast server and have they told you about suppositories?”

I reflected on the fact that parenting builds strong character and stronger stomachs as the flu made its way through the household recently. I still think teenage pregnancy rates would plummet if teens were forced to spend a week doing the cleaning and laundry for a family of flu-sufferers. But after nine years of motherhood, I noticed that I was finishing up my coffee as I mopped up the latest flu victim, and getting dinner out of the freezer as I dumped her sheets into the washing machine. As one of 10 carsick-prone children, I used to marvel at my mother’s ability to take care of such disasters without losing her own lunch. My mother never got sick. On the list of The Basic Facts of Life, “Mothers never get sick” comes right between “Budgets never contain your actual expenses” and “Don’t drink the water”.

The arrival of new siblings, however, did assure Mother of lengthy hospital stays at regular intervals. At these times, my father took charge. “Daddy boiled the peas until all the water was gone,” we told visitors. “We couldn’t eat them, but they made great play dough.”Thanks to my father’s cooking, some of my sisters are pretty fair potters today.

My husband also took charge last week when I, a card-carrying mother, woke up to discover that my stomach was doing its level best to evert my toes and spit them out.

My husband’s cooking does have one advantage over my father’s – our dog. Natasha, who doesn’t want to strain either of her brain cells by involving them in food decisions, has a policy of eating anything which might have started out as food or have once had a label with a picture of food. She is also quite happy to eat the label. This left the children free to pursue their usual frozen waffle and peanut butter diet.

Being sidelined gave me the opportunity to reflect on the differences in our parenting styles. My husband is a great believer in personal responsibility. For example, he will do the laundry, but the clothes must be personally responsible for sorting themselves. He will also do the kitchen, but the pots and counters are their own responsibility. When the kids wanted to dye eggs, he retired to the porch, leaving them responsible for coloring eggs, counters,, furniture, and floors.

The 4-year-old takes after his father in this respect. When he was hungry, he decided to fix himself potato pancakes. He cracked about a dozen eggs, shells and all, into my largest bowl and grated the skins (both his own and the potatoes’) before floating several large potatoes in the bowl. I came in as he was about to dump it into a frying pan and light the gas stove.

He also made the mistake of turning to his sisters for assistance at one point. I overheard the young rajah demand, “Butter my waffle.” They immediately set him straight. “We’re not your slaves. That’s what Mama and Daddy are here for.”

I have to get downstairs before any more laundry becomes personally responsible, so I’m going to let the 4-year-old finish this column with his butterfly story:

“When you have something bad in your heart, the butterflies come and lick up all the bad stuff out of your heart. Then they take the bad stuff to a big machine and drop it in. The bad stuff gets turned into butter, and the butterflies fly it to big trucks. The trucks take the butter to the grocery store, and you go in there and eat it. This is called the Butter Cycle.”