social media

So I'm checking my Instagram while standing behind 10 other people in line at Walmart late Saturday morning and this picture shows up . . . 

With this caption: Saturday mornings are the best. Ted on the iPad. Sophie watchin TV. Millie being Millie. 

That all seems nice enough. But allow me to tell you (in the words of Paul Harvey) the rest of the story . . . 

Friday morning we were first in line at MedExpress to have Ted diagnosed with Croup and Sophie's ears rechecked. She had an ear infection 2 weeks ago and has still been complaining. It's just fluid in her ears. We had a rough Thursday night with Ted that involved lots of coughing, trouble breathing, contemplating a trip to the ER and standing outside in pj's and coats to clear airways and make his cough more productive. We went to New Martinsville for a couple of hours to refinance the van at the Credit Union, eat some fish at the good old Catholic Church fish fry and home and in bed by 9pm. 

Friday night:

1:30 am - Sophie wakes up having puked in her bed. Again. She had the stomach virus last Thursday. This time she managed much more damage that involved 3 loads of laundry. Perhaps I should learn for her not to sleep with anything but her bedding. Either way, Ben bathed her. I made 3 trips to the basement (and forgot to turn the washer ON) and remade a bed with whatever remnants of bedding happened to be easily washable and around. Back to bed.

3:45 am - Ted is up coughing and having a hard time breathing. He and Ben run out all the hot water by running the shower to steam up the bathroom. Back in bed.

5:30 am - More coughing and breathing stuff. Less severe. In my sleep stupor, I tell Ted to put on his coat and go stand on the back deck. And please take Millie out while you're at it. That seems to do the trick. Ted is up for the day. Lots of (non-emergency) coughing from downstairs as well as movies, xbox football and Disney Jr. And strange noises that don't seem important enough to investigate at the time.

7:15 am - Ted: "Emergency, Mom! Sophie things she peed in her bed." We'll just call it the "leftovers" from whatever she didn't spew out of her system at 1:30 am. I am up. 

(I should mention that this is the first Saturday in AGES that we have nothing on the agenda and we were very much looking forward to sleeping in, a big breakfast and doing fun things as a family. The best laid plans . . . )

It turns out that, while the rest of us slumbered, Ted brought Millie's bed down to the living room, along with every stuffed animal in the house AND his own personal bedding. He made himself quite the "nest" on the floor using Millie's bed as the bottom layer. I should mention that Millie is in desperate need of a bath and her bed is STANKY! Thank you, Ted, for spreading your bedding all over hers which equals more laundry. We do whatever breakfast anyone feels like trying to hold down and lay around.

10:15 am - Ben rolls out of bed. I will say that he NEVER sleeps in like that. Sleeping in to us is 8:00 if we're lucky. He's been really tired so I let him sleep - turns out he needed it. I roll out the door to grocery shop since I missed it because of my MedExpress trip Friday morning. Which leads me back to this picture:

The Moral of the Story (Storal of the Morey in Rindercella's case):

I know that our sick night is NOTHING compared to what some of you all have dealt with this winter. I'm very well aware of that. I'm not trying to compare, contrast or make you feel bad for us. What I'm trying to say here is SOCIAL MEDIA LIES. Or maybe the more accurate statement should be WE ALL LIE ON SOCIAL MEDIA. Or maybe something like WE GIVE IMPRESSIONS THAT ARE NOT NECESSARILY ACCURATE. 

Please note: I love my husband, and I'm not calling him out. At the MOMENT, this was a nice, peaceful minute in time. But it doesn't accurately capture all that surrounded it.

You may or may not have seen that picture on Saturday morning and thought about the lovely morning the Tuel's were having. Not so much. 6 loads of laundry later, whiny kids all day, cooped up in the house on a beautiful Saturday, not doing something fun as a family, etc, etc, was not in the caption of the picture. So, before you start feeling bad about someone else's family doing something super fun or being super awesome or doing things way better than you do, please remember there's a bigger story behind all those pictures on twitter, instagram and facebook. I'm just sayin'.