My husband, the mutant

Disclaimer: this is a tongue-and- cheek post about men in general. I LOVE my husband and am just having a bit of fun at his expense!


If you follow me on Facebook at all, you will know that the family has been quite stricken with a nasty little stomach bug of late. By mid-week last week, it appeared to be over with only Paul left standing as the "healthy one." Strike that. Late Saturday night, the mighty one fell--- hard!

In the fifteen months that Paul and I have been dating/ married Paul has only been sick once. Two weeks after we were married, he got a very quick moving stomach bug that KO'd him for about a day. He was violently throwing up. But we were newlyweds. I felt so bad for him!!! He moaned and groaned, and I lovingly wiped his brow.

Fast forward seven months. Last Sunday, I was puking and, well, you know... We also had three kids that were doing the same. So, naturally, I stayed home from church with the three sick ones and Paul took the remaining two to church with him. It was not a fun day, but we managed.

Then, this weekend, after days of bragging that he was not going to get sick and how he was the only one who stayed healthy, Paul succumbed and a horrifying mutation occurred.

My normally very loving and selfless husband transformed into a writhing, groaning, self-absorbed... something! Mind you, I knew exactly what he was feeling-- I had been there just a few days before. He made one final valiant attempt to get ready for church Sunday morning, but when the rumbling took full hold of his belly, and the kids just happened to be in the bathroom brushing their teeth, they fell like a pile of bowling pins at the bellowing "GET OUT, EVERYBODY GET OUT, NOW!" My husband disappeared for the next day and a half. I did not know the man that replaced him.

He did attempt to take Gage to have his baseball team pictures taken on Sunday afternoon. His words to me about that was, "I had been driving for what seemed like years, and I looked down and realized I had only driven a mile."

During my drive home from Sunday PM church, I had called Paul just to talk to him. As I was chatting a mile a minute at him about this and that of church events, Paul suddenly interrupts me and says, "do you mind if I just hang up now? I am just really too tired to talk." Seriously, he had been by himself all day, no one to worry about but taking care of himself, and he had the audacity to say he was too tired to just listen!!! After all, what kind of strength does it require to just hold a phone against your ear and say a few "uh-huhs." So I hung up and shook my head at what babies men can be.

So, Mom got all five kids ready for morning church, took care of them all day, took them to evening church, fed them snack, tucked in each one, and then collapsed with a much deserved Dunkin' Donuts iced coffee and a snack. I watched a movie to unwind from the day's events, and then went to bed.

My first clue that I was not going to get a good night's sleep should have been when Paul half raised his head as I was crawling into bed and said "I am really restless, and just can't get comfortable." Translation: my husband had mutated yet again, this time into a giant, writhing octopus.

Have you ever seen that commercial for the mattress that is just so great that a wine glass balances perfectly in one corner while a grown man jumps on the bed? All I could think of as I was been tossed like a leaf in the wind was, "why didn't we get that mattress?" After about an hour, I had had all I could take, so I moved to the chair in our room that we refer to as the "comfy chair." It sure was a welcomed spot that night! At one point, Paul did realize that he had basically kicked me out of the bed, and managed some sort of and apology.

Monday morning rolled around finally, and I got the three older ones off to school. Paul slept for the better half of the day, but did manage to return to his normal self by the afternoon, where he redeemed himself by folding all the laundry for me!

I laughed through much of this, but mused to myself many times at just why do they refer to women as the "weaker sex?"!!!!