visions of sugarplums

the worst flu you've had in years comes knocking two days before christmas and decides to bear down, kick up its feet and stay awhile. and what do you do but nurture her when she comes? if you fight her, she will knock you down, from the chest. guaranteed. so you wrap yourself around her and you drink warm tea and you complain and you cry and you miss christmas eve and christmas day and all of the family you planned on seeing.
you do not miss out on helping your daughter leave treats for santa and the reindeer. you do, however, burn the cookies and turn off the oven and collapse back into your comforter covered couch and wait for your man and your baby to come home from the festivities and take over. because even the simplest of tasks have become too much. you watch television, you sleep. and you stay awake on christmas eve unintentionally because you simply. cannot. breath.
come sunday, you eat your first real meal in days. you realize you lost four pounds this weekend. and you are less happy about this than you thought you would be.
you wake up your almost three year old on christmas morning and you tell her that santa came. you ask if she heard the bells ringing as he passed the house and she says yes, mommy, i heard them.
you ask her what she told santa she wanted. a kitchen. which sounds a whole lot like chitch-in and you smile as she turns the corner and sees her brand new play kitchen standing in the room. you marvel at how she doesn't seem as surprised as you thought she would and you realize. she believes. and she knows she is good. she does not doubt that santa would hear her.
(she is, however, quite impressed that santa left her some pieces of cookie for her because she really wanted him to.)
you tell your daughter far too many times in one four day period that you cannot play with her because you are too sick. and she puts her hand to your head and says oh, ack-a-tually, you're warm. you're sick, mommy. and you watch your man be both parents for the holidays so that you can phone it in.
you are grateful and irritable and sick and tired and happy and hungry and too full and you simply feel the most human you can possibly feel.
you think about sesame seeds and you sleep through christmas.
because it is almost the new year.
and a change is gonna come.