Worst part of my vacation – getting sick.  No, being sick for that extended week that I paid Travelocity and US Airways a ridiculous sum to change my flight just to enjoy a few more days of sunshine, except I didn’t actually get out much because I was sick.

Best part of my vacation (except all the lovely time with my family, which comes first) – having a great excuse to curl up on the couch all day long watching seasons 1 and 2 of Downton Abbey with my MIL and 12yo.  Just in time before my flight home, we topped it off with the season 3 premiere.

The week before Christmas, the kids and I had all gotten the flu.  I had taken the advice of my well-meaning chiropractor and didn’t get the flu shot this year, then immediately caught it.  Bleh.  My only consolation was that it wouldn’t be me to get sick this year when the family all gathered together.  Oh, was I wrong.

Every time this group gets together for the holidays, sickness travels from one person to the next like fire in a drought.  This is no exaggeration.  We come from all parts of the country (and world) to share our own special, regional viruses.  Those little bugs get together and have a party of their own at the expense of their hosts and seem to produce one super bug.

Merry Christmas.  Exchange gifts.  Share the love.  Trade viruses.  Get sick.  Nothing like watching one kid begin to sniffle, another complains of a sore throat.  One vomits while tethered to the breast, as another breaks out in bright red hives.  We celebrate the season with daily trips to the pharmacy as we can’t seem to keep those fevers down and the mucus dry enough.

In the middle of a bright, sunny, Arizona afternoon, one mommy takes a pass through a darkened living room, touching each forehead of the eight kids bundled up there – all vegging out watching movies – determining who’s ready for the next round of Tylenol.  Indeed, it is worse among the kids, but the parents do not go unscathed.  A dad disappeared, swallowed by a dark room, under cover, only to emerge when his flight home beckoned.  My father-in-law, the patriarch of this clan who has given up the comfort of his own bed, misses the gatherings as he lies sick on an air mattress stuffed in an office.  For the rest of us, sleepless nights for the kids usually meant sleepless nights for the parents.  We were all a bit groggy and the kids got to watch a lot of movies.

I arrived here feeling rather smug, believing that my kids and I would be immune.  I had suffered already, this trip was one to be enjoyed.  No, just a couple of days with her cousins, my daughter caught the bug.  What?  She’d been sick only two weeks ago.  Then the boy.  Then me.  Did we just catch another strain of the flu?  How unfair!

The one family that got their flu shots remained well.  They burst into the darkened home full of vibrant energy.  Come on, let’s go biking, hiking, playing, shopping, etc, etc.  No thanks.  We’re sick.

We extended our trip.  Why go home to freezing Chicago when we could convalesce in sunny Arizona?  The kids get better first, so it is a treat to have Grandma and Grandpa ready to amuse them.  Grandma fills me with home remedies, healthy food, and care while I just want to close my eyes and rest.  Isn’t it true, when you are sick, you just want to have a mom around?

Raw schmaw.  Juicing schmooshing.  With all my focus on healthy diet, exercise, and natural living, I definitely plan to get the flu shot next year.

Staying with my mother-in-law for the last week gave me the privilege of playing with some of her fabulous small appliances and gadgets.  She is the best resource for homemaking tricks.  Really.

Super Simple Smoothies with my MIL’s Blendtec

I didn’t embrace my role as a homemaker when I first got married, and would bristle with indignation whenever I received a kitchen gadget as a gift.  As if!  When I married her son, he and I both worked about the same amount of excessive hours that is typical for New York couples.  Maybe we’d leave the office around 7 or 8.  Have dinner and put in a few more hours from home.  Boy, I don’t miss those 60 plus hour work weeks with a pager on call 24 hours a day.  Pagers, remember those?  Although today I continue to be on call 24 hours, 7 days a week, my clients (kids) are much cuter than those cranky old Wall Street techno nerds (I say that lovingly because I married one, ha ha) and significantly more pleasant.

My son loves cutting up his own apples with this apple slicer gadget.

Where was I?  Oh, the kitchen gadgets.  Indignation.  I wasn’t exactly a hard core feminist when I met my husband, but I had been a professional woman supporting myself long enough in the wilds of Manhattan to have a heavy dose of tension when trying to divide up domestic duties with my new spouse.  Call it practical feminism, perhaps.  He worked for money.  I worked for money.  While the paychecks weren’t exactly equivalent, the time spent to earn them was.  We both needed and deserved equal rest and recreation, so it made perfectly good sense to me that we would both contribute equally in the care of our household.  So when I received gifts for the home and he got, well, socks, ties, games or puzzles, I wanted to shake my fists and scream.  This is not what I signed up for!  I’d swallow that lump of rage and try to accept my tools of domestic enslavement with as much graciousness that I could muster accepting that the culture from which he came would likely not be changed by me.

This mini scooper has been great for scooping up cookie dough. Especially the raw vegan kind :)

Time passed, babies came, and I’d like to think that I’ve mellowed with age.  He runs a company and I run a household, a couple of them, even.  Our roles and responsibilities are about as traditional as it gets and I consider it good fortune that I get to choose a career as flexible, creative, compassionate and gratifying as raising up my kids.  Not everyone finds satisfaction with child and household care, so I applaud all women who find work that fulfills them best.  Happy, responsible mommies, are the best mommies.  The end.  Only, to settle the age old pick-up-your-socks fight, we’ve hired a housekeeper.

Just got these Scrub Buds in my Xmas stocking. Steely and springy and won’t scratch. I think.

Today, I’m thrilled with my mother-in-laws nifty little gadget discoveries.  We get together and have a lot to share.  Last year I was all fired up from my Vitamix.  She was like, yeah, I’ve had one of those for ages.  My new dehydrator?  She scoffs (not really, because she’s too nice to scoff), kid, have you been living under a rock?  Ah, but I got her with my spiralizer.  Finally I have something fun and quirky (and useful) to share with her for our next visit – zucchini noodles.

What nifty little gadget can you never part with?