Mono-logue

Why so silent, Darwins? I hope this surprisingly informative sketch will clear things up for you:



One child confirmed, one more definitely showing symptoms, two more with white spots on their tonsils, and one without white spots on her tonsils but man, are they grotesque. The kids took the flashlight and checked down my throat for good measure.

"I can't even see your tonsils, Mom!" said one, awed.

"Wait a minute -- Mom doesn't have tonsils!" said another.

(True enough: I had them out when I was eleven, but I'd forgotten that until I was saying "aaaah".)

Mono can only be spread through saliva, which doesn't really help us in a house where people pick up any cup off the counter to drink. It can also stay in your system for up to six months. In the meantime you can be feverish and sleepy. I'm watching carefully for signs of lethargy, but so far everyone's attitude status is salty.

Alas, I wish I could blame my own weariness on mono, but it's simply the result of having seven children spread across a range of very eventful ages, from baby who's beginning, at nineteen months, to behave like a big two-year-old, to the eight-year-old who needs special dyslexia tutoring with me, to the oldest who needs extra coaching on passing the maneuverability test. There simply is no time to do the things I want and need to do. Remember that textbook I was writing? I've been thisclose to ending a chapter since November. I need daytime writing time, and I need it away from distractions, away from diapers and sippy cups and drama and dance and dyslexia and dinner time and parking cones and SAT prep and braces and glasses and mono.

And there's no treatment for mono but waiting it out, which is too disgustingly on the nose for me to even comment on.

Allow me to close with this advice: pull the car up through the cones until your mirror is even with the second set of cones, turn the wheel 180 degrees in the direction you want to go, then when your mirror is even with the center cone, turn 360 degrees. Stop when your bumper is even with the center cone. Reverse. When your mirror is even with the center cone, turn the wheel back 360 degrees. When your mirror on the side you initially turned to shows both cones, turn the wheel 180 degrees to straighten out. Back out of the cones. No, straighten up. Straighten the other way! No, you've bumped it already. Let's pull around and try again.