So, This is Christmas?

Here I sit in an easy chair in our bedroom typing on the laptop, hoping to squeeze in a few minutes, maybe even hours, of work while a pathetic five-year-old lays delirious in our bed, fighting a high fever. Her preteen sister is completely unconscious in her own bed, hopefully to wake before dinner. She’s not sick. She just sleeps a lot these days. And doesn’t bathe, unless we force her to. It’s like living with a monkey with fashion sense and good grades.

But the little one is fighting a high fever. She was attacked by the fever yesterday during the winter party in her Early Childhood class. Five minutes into it, just as they were starting all the activities, getting out the games and spreading out food, she had to go home. She cried. Nay, she wept.

You see, she had been waiting for weeks for this party. She had planned her outfit, made sure it was clean, tried on special shoes. She was dressed to the nines, in her velvet winter dress and fancy shoes that didn’t match, but were purchased for her cousin’s wedding. It didn’t matter. They were the nicest shoes she owns and this party was important.

She planned ahead. She had to go to the sitter’s before school and she planned on telling her to let her eat light because there would be lots of food at the party. And they did have good food. But poor Gert never got to eat a bite. Instead, she was at home burning like a furnace.

Now she’s lying on my bed watching Christmas specials. That’s right, she’s sick only a few days before Christmas, the Super Bowl of a kid’s year. There are parties and family gatherings that need to be gone to, presents to be gotten. But if this fever runs the course the school thinks it will run, she will be doing exactly this until next Thursday. Seven days of fever, high fever and general malaise. We’re hoping they're wrong. We’re hoping that Matilda doesn’t get it. Mom and I can handle it. Jack us up with enough Advil and coffee, we can do anything. But a kid? Missing a Christmas party?

Life sucks.

Last night she came into our room at four o’clock and crawled in bed with us. She told Mom that she heard a voice in her room and that’s why she was here, not because of the nuclear reactor generating heat in her body.

“What did the voice say,” Mom asked.

“Have fun,” Gert replied in her Tom Waits voice.

Not sure if the voice belonged to the Ghost of Christmas on Layaway, we all decided at that point it was safer to stay in bed until the sun rose. It was a chore because I really had to pee.

But there she lays. Three days before Christmas, two days before my family’s Christmas blow out. Sad, little lump that she is.

She’s perking up now thanks to the alternating course of Tylenol and Advil (whatever doctor came up with that idea was a genius), but we know that it’s fleeting. Soon the fever will rear its ugly head and send her back down. She’ll look at me with her heavy-lidded gaze and I’ll wish I could fix everything.

Instead, we’re going to the kitchen to have some Cinnamon toast. I think I’ll use red and green sugar to make it a little more festive. And maybe we’ll sing a carol or two while she feels okay.

After all, she deserves her holiday party. Even if it’s just on a piece of toast.