Snot and gratitude
Jan 30, 2004 Parenting
Noah is still sick. He only gets sick about once a year (knock wood) but then he’s down for a few days. Nobody sleeps when Noah’s got a cold because he throws himself around and weeps and yells at us. So Noah and I tuck into the big bed and Brett takes himself to the bottom bunk since he needs to get up early. I’m operating on a serious sleep deficit but since we’re not going anywhere anyway, I’m using it as an excuse to lie around and get a lot of reading done.
Brett called this morning to see how Noah was then he asked what I was doing.
“Taking care of a sick child, of course,” I told him, indignantly. But then I had to admit that Noah was ignoring me to play with his new pirate ship and so I was having a cup of coffee while I read the new Anne Tyler book.
Yesterday while Noah was downstairs listening to story tapes and snuffling and coughing, I was washing the dishes and I was hit with this out of body sense of gratitude that I get now and then. It always happens when I’m doing housework, which makes me think I’m having flashbacks to a past life as a peasant living in the shtetl. So I’m standing at the sink and I’m thinking, “Wow, look at this sink! A double sink! Look at all of these dishes I have and how pretty they are and all this great green depression glass my sister has helped me get! I am so lucky!”
I usually get this way about laundry. Again, I don’t know if I’m channeling my past peasant or if I’m just remembering living in a third floor walk-up with basement laundry room when Noah was brand new. Granted, Portland has a diaper service (there isn’t one here) so I wasn’t having to wash diapers but a new baby generates a lot of laundry anyway. Now I have my own washer and dryer just one floor down! There’s room to sort clothes, a place to hang them after, and a tidy little shelf for my detergent. What bliss!
Our house is small and it’s grubby but compared to the shtetl, I think I’m doing pretty good.
January 30th, 2004 at 11:16 am
Thoughts of the shtetl make me think of the blessings of running hot water every time.