Disappointment

I know I've shared in past posts that I dread it when the stomach bug comes to our house, but I particularly grow weak in the knees at the though of it disrupting big events that we have planned. After all, the pukes keep you tied to the house in a way that a drippy nose or hacking cough doesn't.

With that said, this coming weekend is my first weekend teaching -- and I only teach three weekends out of the entire semester. Missing even one of these weekends is, in other words, a major, major deal. I have double and triple planned babysitting, photocopying, and technology in the hopes that there is little that screws things up.

Today we had a birthday party to go to, and it was one that we were very excited about. It was a beach party planned for the middle of February, and the parents were planning to let the kids run around in their bathing suits in an overheated house to give the feel of sunnier, balmier places. Did I mention that this family has just moved here from LA? And that they're very cool and I already like hanging out with them quite a bit? And that that they live three blocks from us? Yeah, lots of good things.

When we arrived at said birthday party that dad casually informed us that one of their daughters (the party was for both girls -- their birthdays are a day apart) had been up all night crying and vomiting -- and this morning, too. And they hoped it was just a 24 hour thing, but they'd put her back to bed just in case. I started to get the cold sweats. Seriously. Then the little girl in question came down stairs, and dad directed her downstairs to play with all of the kids who had shown up for the party!

Ugh. Annemarie and Cole were already stripping off their clothes, ready to bare their bathing suits and join the fun. But I had to stop them; I had them put on their clothes, made a very uncomfortable speech about how we just couldn't get sick, and we headed for the door. And while mom was apologizing and trying to send us with cupcakes, trying to get the older daughter to hug each of my kids goodbye, Annemarie and Cole stood their with eyes welling with tears. Poor kids. I was a bit weepy myself: in part feeling the disappointment they felt; in other part with some small anger that no one had thought that this might be a good thing to warn us of before we got there, before we got ourselves mentally committed to the streamers and sunshine shaped balloons and the cupcakes with frosting that looked like the blue ocean with red gummy fish squished into their tops. And so with plans to reunite soon and re-enact the highlights of the party, we took off.

Was it over the top for me to go home? I don't think so. But I'm still feeling that terrible knot in the pit of my stomach over their disappointment.