Surviving the Black Winter of 2020

I’m not sure if Mercury was in retrograde in the shadow of Jupiter’s moon Europa or if we just had the extreme misfortune to have a neon flashing sign above our house that screamed, “Germs and Viruses Welcome Here!”, but February was not our best month. In fact, I’m pretty sure that our household was solely responsible for any stock price surges that may have occurred from the companies who manufacture Lysol spray and Clorox wipes.

Not that either of them helped diffuse the situation AT ALL.

Having endured 40 New York winters mean that I’m pretty much used to the colds and illnesses that like to hang out with the frigid months, like friggin’ stalkers that just won’t go home. Add to that the youngest child’s predilection for being sick from November straight through to March due to his weak preemie lungs, and it’s just another day of mayhem in our crazy household.

I think the bacteria and germs were starting to take offense at how blasé we were at their appearance so they decided to up the ante.

It started with a cold that my daughter seemed to turn into a sinus infection. (Like pulling a rabbit out of a hat!) She very nicely shared the germs with my husband and me, effectively making 3/5 of our house a walking cold medicine commercial. Not to be left out, the 12 year old jumped in to join the fun, making it a full 80% of our domicile infected by this seemingly innocuous little pain in the ass cold.

Meanwhile, the youngest, who had his normal on and off cough since winter got started, is now the healthiest person in our house. Unfortunately, he has a little bit of mom’s (occasional) overachiever gene and decided that not only was he going to get this cold, he was going to get rid of it and then  host it again for a second time!

Bu wait! If you act now, we’ll throw in pneumonia AND Flu A for the low, low price of a shockingly high fever and one panicked school nurse! That’s right, we’ll throw it in for FREE!* (*Additional charges in the form of co-payments may apply.)

By this time, I think it had also worked its way around to a second run at me and my husband. Our house could have doubled for a pharmacy at one point with antibiotics, nebulizer meds, multiple cold remedies, cough syrups, cough drops, throat lozenges, tissues, and multiple forms of Vitamin C. What is generally the shortest month of the year turned into some sort of hunger games type survival of the fittest challenge. Quite frankly, we all failed. Hard. Those germs kicked our ass and made us their bitch.

Having crawled our way to the finish line of February, we are looking forward to March having some fresher air and a less, uh, germy personality. Sorry February, but you didn’t win any popularity contests this year. Better luck in 2021.

Need even more mayhem? Find me on FaceBook (Modern Mom Mayhem) or on the Insta’ (modernmommayhem).