Always Us

sick snuggles

Laying in bed feeling like I'm starting to get sick, so I wrote a little bit of floof 🥺

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Olivia held her breath as she watched her oldest son cross the room, precariously balancing a very full bowl of hot soup on a small wooden tray.

"Here you go, mommy!"

"Thank you, baby," she said between sniffles. Her whole body ached, but she couldn't resist the urge to reach out and caress his cheek. "What would I do without you."

Jackson shrugged, trying to contain his shy smile. "I don't know."

Olivia laughed, then coughed, then turned her face into the pillow and groaned.

On her other side, Caleb dug himself deeper into her side, whimpering as if he felt every bit of her discomfort.

"Mommy, mommy, mommy," Gianna chanted, scrambling off of the bed and running to where Jackson stood. "I feed you."

"Okay," Olivia nodded, pushing herself into a seated position. She grabbed the tray and slid it onto her lap, mitigating the side effects of what she already knew would be a disaster. "Just a little though."

The three year-old nodded as her hand wrapped around the spoon's handle. "Mhm." She scooped up a spoonful, blew dramatically, and steadily raised it up. By the time the utensil made it to Olivia's lips, its contents had all splashed down.

Olivia took the spoon in anyways, humming at the faint taste of Spencer's homemade chicken noodle soup.

"Yummy, thank you," she grinned, slipping her hand over Gianna's tiny one and claiming back the spoon.

"I made it," Gianna said seriously.

"Now, wh—" Olivia furrowed her eyebrows. Her baby girl had been tucked against her legs for the past two hours, eyes trained on Sienna's iPad, watching her older sister play their favorite games. "No, you didn't."

Gianna bit her bottom lip and broke out in a fit of giggles. "I kidding." Then she started performing a questionable dance and jumped back onto the bed to join her siblings.

"Do you want more water, mommy?" Jackson tilted his head at her while she slurped at the soup.

"No, I'm okay. I still have some," she smiled.

Spencer walked in, his voice filling the room. "Hey, how about we give your mom some room, huh?"

Sienna looked up from her iPad. "There's plenty of room," the eleven-year old stated, looking over to her left. There was a full foot between her and her mom. So what if the foot of space was taken up by two squirming toddlers? Mommys don't need that much space.

Spencer shook his head. "Your mom needs to breathe."

"No!" Gianna shouted. "We help mommy breave."

"You all are the reason she's sick," he said, grabbing onto the closest ankles he could reach.

He pulled them towards the edge of the bed and the crying and screaming started immediately. Spencer tried to hush them down, but they didn't stop until Olivia let out a whimper.

"Stop."

The pounding in her head couldn't take any more noise.

"Alright, let's go," Spencer announced decisively. "Everybody."

Ignoring his command, everyone scooted closer to Olivia.

"It's fine," she murmured, weakly holding up the bowl.

Spencer gave her an apologetic look and took the bowl from her. He glanced down, noticing that she had barely consumed one-third of the soup. "Was it bad?"

"No, no, it was good. I just don't want anymore." The exhaustion was hitting her all at once, and she needed to lay her head down. She wriggled her way back under the covers and managed to breath out, "I just need to close my eyes for a bit."

And with four small bodies keeping her warmer than she ever wanted to be, she somehow managed to drift off to sleep.

_____

Olivia's eyes blinked open to find her bed nearly empty for the first time all day.

"Where'd they go?" her voice came out groggy.

Spencer looked over from his laptop to see his wife resurrected from the dead. "I got them downstairs watching a movie. You feeling better?"

"No," she groaned. "My whole body hurts. I feel like I got hit by a truck."

"You're pretty hot," Spencer noted, pressing his palm onto her forehead.

"Thank you," she said, a smile creeping onto her face.

Spencer couldn't help but snort. "Even when you're sick."

She closed her eyes and focused on breathing through her mouth. "You're funny."

After a few minutes of steady inhales and exhales, she felt the mattress shift beneath her and heard Spencer's footsteps leave the room. Several minutes later, the footsteps returned and a cold towel landed on her forehead. The throbbing in her skull had gotten so bad that she barely had the energy to thank him.

"I'm going to get you changed," he murmured. "You're burning."

This time, Olivia didn't smile.

Working around her body, Spencer freed her from her sweat-drenched pajamas. A clean set of clothes weren't going to be enough. Her body was on fire.

He left for the bathroom then came back to get her.

She sucked in her breath as he carefully lowered her into the bathtub. "It's cold," she groaned.

"It'll help," he whispered.

Her hands clenched onto the side of the tub while he got up to close the bathroom door. As much as she insisted it was okay, poking fingers were the last thing she needed right now.

He took a seat next to her and continued to press the towel to her forehead while she groaned. It killed him to see her like this, but after two weeks of running around checking temperatures and cleaning up snotty noses, he knew it had been inevitable that one of them would come crashing down.

"Mommy!!"

A series of bodies crashed into the locked door and Spencer shook his head. They could never just walk like normal people.

"Is someone hurt?" Spencer called.

"No," Sienna replied.

"Okay, give us a few more minutes, please."

Caleb cried out. "We want to take care of mommy."

"Daddy is taking care of mommy right now."

They went quiet for a bit. Figuring that they had give up, Spencer returned his attention to Olivia. That was, until a folded piece of bright orange construction paper flew through the slot beneath the door.

"Give her this, please."

Letting go of Olivia's limp hand, he scooted across the floor to retrieve the makeshift card.

Inside Sienna's handwriting read:

feel better mommy!! we love you sooooo much!!

ps. daddy gives the best sick snuggles.

Then each of the kids had signed it. Or at least had tried to.

Spencer turned back to Olivia and found her staring at him through heavy-lids. "Let me see."

He handed the card over and she hummed. "I feel better already."

And three days later, under the care of one super husband and four semi-helpful kids, she finally did.