Don't make me laugh.

I think it's cute. Lu, Edy, Bea and I have the same cough. On the cough scale, it's rather mild. I almost forget I have it until someone makes me laugh. Then once I get going, I'm a raging case of black lung. A burning rattle vibrates deep in my chest. Heads turn, children point, until I settle myself down. So I must be careful when reading any of slate.com's Downton Abbey recaps - hysterical - or when sipping appletinis with two of my closest friends and discussing how our ridiculously intense high school swim coach made us lay on the stinky mats in the wrestling room, listen to One Moment in Time blared on a boom box, and visualize our races like we were destined for the Seoul Summer Olympics. (RIP Whitney.)


There's also a post-nasal component to this sick package, but it's not at all cute and is keeping Bea up at night. One can not effectively suck ones thumb with all that drip action. I'm not convinced it's a cold, it might be allergies, but I am washing the sheets like a mad lady and opening windows for fresh air, a process that may, if it is allergies, kill us because this weird weather is multiplying mold spores. Or so I've heard.

What is your history with colds, flus and other common illnesses?


I was a hearty kid, but maybe it just appeared that way next to my brother who had countless bouts with bronchitis all winter, every winter. I have no memory of anything terrible taking me down. Just chicken pox, strep throat, low fevers and the purple boobaleen. If there was ever a super contagious stomach bug floating about town, it would plow right through our family of six. My mom (and her mom, I think) called it the purple boobaleen. It's a strangely appropriate name. Feel free to use it. No copyright is pending.


I admit, I liked being sick. A simple virus could net you:
1) the portable black and white tv carried into your room
2) a barf bucket at the ready
3) a washcloth on your forehead
4) the opportunity to sport your Christmas robe and crazy matted hair
5) root beer in a can with a bendable straw. Maybe to burp yourself better?


During the early months of 1988, I was in the throws of teenage love and soon developed the dreaded kissing disease. Having mono is the sickest I can remember ever being in all of my life. The glands in my neck were so sore and swollen I could barely speak. This disheartened my impatient boyfriend (now husband) who wanted to talk at length on the phone. He's always been super chatty. Some kids with mono would be out of school for a month, but I willed myself better in a weekend, because that's what good and loyal (slightly obsessed, but I guess it all worked out) girlfriends do!

Here's the card Jon gave me when I had mono. It played creepy carousel music to "keep me up??" He claims I throw away everything. Apparently not! You know I want to grab a blue pen and fix his spelling error.

My junior year of college I was selected to represent our school at the Model UN in NYC. It was a big honor. The event came and I got very sick. Like 103 lethargic fever sick. I was super hot and somewhat delirious for several days. When you're twenty and motherless, no one is telling you to take medicine and climb in bed. I believed I could soldier on. As a result, I was voted most apathetic by my committee of countries which, if I wasn't hallucinating, was comprised of pageant-like girls from southern universities in fancy tailored suits. The whole episode is a fuzzy dream.

In college, being sick came with the germy grossness of communal living. Add a host of unhealthy habits and you were always fighting something. Stomach issues are the absolute worst when you share a row of poorly hinged bathroom stalls about forty feet down the hall. I remember my roommate throwing up out the dorm window in sheer desperation. But I don't remember us doing anything about it. Just closing the window and filing it away with so many other cringe-worthy images from those four years.


As a responsible adult and parent, I pride myself on staying very healthy. I keep the house clean, I wipe down door knobs and wash blankets on the hottest, most environmentally unfriendly setting. I am generous with Lysol. It's probably all psychosomatic, but putting the burden on an inanimate source (my sterile, picked up house) keeps sickness at bay. Neat home = healthy family! Winter comes and winter goes and I never get anything I can't sleep off with a Nyquil coma or Benadryl blackout.


I did get the purple boobaleen at the beach a few years ago. Oooof. It was bad. My friend caught it first, but thankfully dads and kids were spared. When I think about that trip, two thoughts come to mind. #1 Every family who rented our house for the rest of the season probably caught the same contagious strain. Over and over again. #2 I looked great in the pictures we took at the end of the week. Who doesn't love an unexpected five pound weight loss?! At the beach!


But seriously, I'm very healthy. I am. And so are Jon and the kids. Edy will have respiratory issues and need a nebulizer treatment every now and again and Bea's nose will run like a faucet off and on, but Lu, it seems, is never sick. Never. Until she scared me to death on her ninth birthday. It's unquestionably the most frightened I have ever been as a parent.


It started when she showed me some weird bruises on her knee. I told her we'd monitor them. They stayed the same for many days. Then on the evening of her birthday, she had an indoor soccer game and scored four goals! We went directly from the game to dinner so it was late by the time she got in the shower. She called for me and I swear I almost fainted. There were purple, red and blue welts all over her legs. Lu is very sensitive to emotions, so I had to calmly ask her to get dressed and come with me calmly to the ER. It's hard to hide your fear (of a flesh eating virus that would require amputation or worse) when you are driving your daughter to the hospital at 11pm instead of tucking her into bed. On her birthday!


After a few tense hours, she was diagnosed with a totally harmless autoimmune disorder called HSP. It has a longer name I can say, but can't spell. It lasted ten weeks and is now gone forever.


So that's it. Perfect timing. I am feeling the urge to clean.


Editor's note: My cute cough took a turn for the worse and I got slightly sicker by the time this post was posted. I still think it might be allergies, but I looked around and decided to blame the basement.

I know you envy my eyebrows.

It happens once, maybe twice, a year. Last weekend I walked to Wawa, approached the intimidating kiosk, and bought myself Powerball tickets – thoroughly annoying the line of lottery regulars accumulating behind me because I can never seem to remember how to do it and my $10 bill wasn't very crisp and refused to feed properly.

We only play when the payout reaches $250 or more million dollars. Which makes absolutely no sense. Honestly, I would rather quietly win a much smaller prize and go about my business than some crazy big jackpot that lands me on the local news holding a giant check.

It's all so silly. Jon and I have an action plan in place should our numbers be called. It's more like I engage him, and then continue to bug and bug, until he finally answers my questions like, "What is the first thing we'll do?" He says, move to Florida to establish residency because it will save us several million in taxes. To which I say, if I'm winning that much money, I will gladly pay several million in taxes to not move to Florida. Maybe Pennsylvania can finally address its pothole problem.

We do agree on giving to charity (ovarian cancer, of course, and abused animals because there is nothing sadder) and buying a simple beach house at the Jersey shore, only the day of the simple beach house is long gone. Upper middle class Americans were once able to get a cute family cottage a few blocks from the ocean, but now you need to have had some Google shares laying around circa 2004. It kills me. I lived in Avalon for a few summers when property was still reasonable. If I could go back in time, I would find me (probably sleeping on the beach procuring the severe sun damage that plagues me today), shake me awake and demand that I find some money (beg, borrow) and buy beach block because the market is going to soar like you wouldn't believe. Then, I would yell "Google!" And then I would switch out the baby oil with SPF 50.

Besides the beach house, I would also for sure have a cleaner come weekly. In fact, I might get myself an Alice-type maid who lives in a tidy apartment off the kitchen and cooks all meals, packs all lunches, and completes all science fair projects with "the children" while I sip cocktails on a chaise lounge. She could also help Lu with her fourth grade math that is now entirely over my head.

And I would travel.

But alas, we didn't win. Somebody in far off Rhode Island was luckier. I hope they truly need it and are good, stable folk that will invest well. Unlikely. Lottery winners tend to buy meandering mansions and fill them with genuine medieval knight armor and a collection of Bentleys before landing in a foreign prison for something dodgy.

Besides winning the lottery of life (good husband, healthy kids) I haven't won much. In college, my name was drawn by a Mary Kay consultant who visited our campus and gave me a free makeover. I was too young/naive to realize this was a marketing scheme. The joke was on her because college kids have no money and the grunge years were primarily make-up-less. She told me my eyebrows were my best feature. How terrible is that? Not my bright smile or flawless complexion. My un-plucked, grungy eyebrows.

Jon's been to Vegas many times but never won significant money. Probably because he seeks out the $5 tables for maximum entertainment value while still enjoying unlimited free drinks. (I've been to Vegas once and my only windfall was Edy nine months later.) Jon claims to have never won much of anything besides a golf bag in a raffle. A really nice golf bag. Too nice for his skill level. So it's been sitting in our garage for twelve years.

In full disclosure, Jon did win every election or award offered in high school. He was homecoming king and was voted class secretary... with a broken arm. You can argue that these wins were based on merit and not chance, but they are still wins and totally trump my Miss Tadpole crown from the Flourtown Swim Club Queen Mermaid Pageant 1977. My dad was pool manager. I had a tail up. This is me awaiting my sash and bouquet of roses.

We all have "chance-like" things happen that seem one in a million. I've had several. Like the time I stated out loud that I had never seen a shooting star, looked up and saw a shooting star. Or like when I searched and searched for the right set of plates for my new plate rack. I finally settled on a green and white paisley pattern. I glanced the register and was confused when my name popped up. The design was called "Gretchen." What are the chances?

And talk about an outside possibility, in just a few weeks I will be thinking of my mom who was born on leap year 1940. Birthdays are hard when you lose someone close. It's nice if you can ignore it for three years, but when that fourth year rolls around it's doubly difficult, no quadruply. My mom would have been 18. I remember when I turned 11, she was still 10 and I thought that was very cool – even if I didn't understand the impressive odds behind it.

What have you won in your life? What would you do if you hit a big jackpot? What are your thoughts on chance?

Love.

With Valentine's Day looming, I decided to document what I love about my family. A quick snap shot of today - and I mean today as in right now and quick as in super quick because it's getting late on Friday and I am just starting this weekly post. So expect short and poorly edited, but entirely sincere and delivered on time.


Bea
I love that she has red hair and we have no idea where it came from. It reminds me of the complicated genetics that form us all and that in some ways everything is random, yet in others it seems completely predetermined. With all that we went through to have a third child, now that she's finally here, it's obvious her soul was destined for our family even if her carrot top is a total mystery. I love that Bea is blanket-crazy. She will snuggle anyone holding - or even wearing - something fleece. She pulls it up to her cheek, sticks her thumb in her mouth and whispers "awwwwww." It will melt the coldest of hearts. I love how Bea knows and loves her sisters most of all and feeds Bunsen at least 50% of whatever is on her highchair tray.


Edy
I love Edy's enthusiasm, her originality, her flamboyance. Edy doesn't walk into a room, she twirls. Edy is dramatic and flowery and embraces all that glitters and sparkles. She takes everything in stride. She goes with the Edy flow, and the Edy flow is always fun and exciting. Edy will write a card to someone that rivals any Hallmark creation. She can do a puzzle in record time and don't ever challenge her to a game of Memory. She will win. No mercy. But she will probably draw you a beautiful picture and pair it with a very kind sentiment to make you feel like less of a loser. 


Lu
I love that Lu is the opposite of Edy. She is simple and practical and serious. She is a teacher's favorite and a coach's dream. She always tries her best. She hounded me for months to initiate testing for the gifted program. She acquired all the details, compiled the names I needed to know. I started the process, but prepared her for possible failure and the inevitable and ugly disappointment spiral. She got in! A confusing mess of paperwork followed. It took me a while to sit down and really decipher her evaluation. Basically it said that she is gifted at being motivated. Really, seriously motivated.


Jon
I love that Jon goes around the house singing all the time. Annoying songs from lots of years ago (Indigo Girls!) and never getting the lyrics right. I love this especially because he is very successful and respected in his career. Two sides to Jon. No fooling around when it comes to providing for his family. No cutting corners. No risky moves. Just early mornings, unpleasant travel, boring accounting issues and day after day of showing up. But at home, he's a complete goofball. I love that we are still quite happy after almost 15 years of marriage and 1,000 years of dating.


That's today's, I mean tonight's, analysis of the MacKenzie 5. Six if we include Bunsen who can be summed up as very sweet, very old and very gassy.


What do you love about your family?

Not entirely unfit for 40.

At least twice a week, I willingly leave my toasty Tempurpedic at 5:15 am, put on my cold weather gear, and head out into the frigid darkness to run 5.5 miles with my neighbor – 6 if we opt for "heartbreak hill." I also suit up and run on Sunday nights when everyone else in the world is quietly (and smartly) resting indoors. That run tends to be harder because it comes just a few hours after a giant meal of Chinese food or maybe Thai. In the morning, I'm not fully awake until mile 2. Makes it go faster.


Now I will tell you that, despite my whining, I love to run in winter! It is the best thing. I feel healthy, accomplished, alive. It gives me more confidence and allows me to eat chocolate valentine hearts throughout the day without dramatic repercussions. It gives me better lung capacity so that climbing to Lu's third floor bedroom with an armful of laundry is a piece of cake. I will also eat cake if you offer some and will not feel bad. Or Pringles when I crave salty. I once saw a woman with a baseball cap that read, "I run so I can eat." That's about right, though I look terrible in a cap of any kind. I've tried.


Ninety-five percent of running is psychological, in my opinion. It's a total head game. Your head is saying,"What are you crazy? It's freezing outside. Remember when you had to warm up your car for 25 minutes before going around the block? And it's dark, you fool." (My head sounds like Mr. T.) You have to ignore your (mean Mr. T) head, lace up your sneakers and go. Just do it. Best advertising line ever because it is so true.


I grew up playing lots of sports. Games, where there is a point to it all. But putting one foot in front of the other, over and over, for no real reason, didn't make sense. I never appreciated it and ultimately grew to despise the mere thought of running.


We had a Turkey Trot every Thanksgiving in Middle School. Essentially, it was a race that was forced upon us. The one mile course consisted of two laps around some fields and along a sidewalk that went over a small creek. In 6th grade, I ran in that oblivious way kids just run and I was the 7th fastest female in my grade. Out of more than 100. That's not shabby. In 7th grade, I finished 11th. Again, pretty impressive. Again, pretty oblivious. By 8th grade, the insecurity and fear of failure kicked in. So did the apathy. My friend and I would duck under the bridge over the creek on the first lap, wait until the racers came back around, and then slip, unnoticed, into the group of slow walkers bringing up the rear. We didn't want to run and we didn't want to win and I bet we didn't want to mess up our hair.


The next twenty or so years, I never ran and would probably make a yucky face and roll my eyes if you asked me why not. Then a group of ladies from my mom co-op in Baltimore convinced me to join their running group. It was the winter after I had Edy and there was lingering baby weight and a gnawing need to shake off my housebound claustrophobia. The idea of getting out and breaking free suddenly sparked my interest. At first, I could barely do a half mile. Downhill. But I kept showing up (to escape that needy baby) and was soon running two miles. Me, two miles.


Then if you can run two miles, you can run three. And so on. Once you get past the mental block, it's really not hard. Running became more about the release. It was my time. I didn't dread it. There was a shift. That pointless act of putting one foot in front of the other, over and over again, became a privilege. My health, my potential, would not be squandered. Oh yes, there was a shift.


I still have a hard time saying I'm a runner. I'm the speed of molasses with a hint of glue. I do not dress in anything slick. My neighbor and I are the perfect pair because we're similarly slow and poorly attired. We make fun of ourselves a lot. And while I'm doling out unquantified percentages, I would say that 45% of the benefit I get from our runs comes from the talking (complaining about husbands) we do. Physical therapy, mental therapy. Love, love, love.


Please don't think I'm trying to convince you to run. In the winter. In the dark. Nothing is worse than someone telling you how to live or what works for them will absolutely work for you. Maybe you're more the mixed martial arts type? I am reminded of a friend from high school who went away to college and became obsessed with country music. Back home, he made us all listen to it. "Wait, you'll love this song. Pay attention to the lyrics. The refrain. The message. LISTEN!" It made me loathe country music. (We've made peace since then. Country music and I, that is. Lost touch with the friend years ago.)


As for other exercise, I also do some yoga every now and then. But yoga preaches no judgment, so I don't go for months at a time, because no one is judging. And I play tennis once a week at the club. Never thought I'd string that sentence together. It's fun and "exercises" my competitive nature.


Put it together and I'm not entirely unfit for 40. Chocolate valentine hearts and all.


What exercise do you prefer and why?