Crewel

I contracted mono my first month of college.

Mere moments after declaring my permanent independence I was bedridden and lifeless with a throat so swollen my parents couldn't understand what I was saying when I called them collect. Having never been sick away from home it was an understatement to say I wanted my mommy. Alas, mommy was a zillion miles away in Missouri. I wore my puffiest, snuggliest fleece pullover Mom had bought me from Express my senior year and called its comfort the best I could do. I wore that cream and brown hoodie the duration of my two week sickness. I wrapped the brown pull string methodically around my finger until I ran out of slack and hit the bronze bead at the end, released the string, and started over. I did that about a thousand times while I lay in bed absorbing the fact that I was flunking college and it wasn't even Thanksgiving yet. Mommy. Far away.

That pullover earned itself the nickname "The Mono Sweater." It died an ignominious, pill-laden death in the early 2000s and left a sick sweater vacancy. That vacancy was filled Monday by a newer, creamer, cozier Mono Sweater incarnate.

Last Sunday in my bedtime prayer I distinctly remember thanking the Lord for my kids and telling Him how I was excited to be their mom the next day. I have never said something like that in a prior prayer. I guess my cup was just running over because Archer is sitting on his own and fits on my lap just so and RE got her expander removed and can eat orzo and lettuce without complaining. Life is so good. We runneth over.

Eight hours after that prayer I woke up to drizzle rap-tap-tapping on the roof. Yee haw! My favorite weather! From my cold bathroom window I watched Duck Soup* fill up with raindrops and mallards. I put on my chunky cream cable knit sweater with brown leather elbow patches my mom bought me at the thrift store after Archer was born. I don't know why but that sweater can take a beating and look just fine. I stretch it, I dry it in the dryer, I wipe my cooking hands on it, I continually act like it's not worth caring for because it was $6 and it continues to outshine every other garment I own. If Pottery Barn made a sweater this would be it.

I put that cream and brown sweater on and proceeded to spend the next eight days Florence Nightingaling my kids back to health. Archer only got a fever for two days but RE...poor, poor RE. It was bad. She missed six days of school and had to go to a specialist for infectious diseases. That's never good. My adrenaline wore off sometime around Thursday at which point I worried myself sick and enjoyed the flu over the weekend.

No Mommy. My Mommy is still in stinking Missouri, a sad phone call and too many miles away. So I wore Mono Sweater 2.0 all week, lay in bed, and wondered for the life of me why some things never change.

*DUCK SOUP is a small inlet of the pond behind our house. It is directly underneath RE's tree house and essentially a duck hot tub. Seriously. It's where all the cool ducks play, especially when the rain or runoff make it deeper than normal.

Photo quote from The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo