Work and Sickly Doldrums and Some Sweet Recognition

Weather in Hong Kong has been TERRIBLE as of late - slashing, torrential downpour and lots of unexpected thunderstorms.  I worked ALL weekend also, blegh.

Poor Lola still has her cough and a runny nose and my cold, which started out innocuously enough last week, is raging on with no end in sight a full week later.  I am coughing a lot and generally feeling pretty lousy.  My head is starting to hurt and I just feel a bit overwhelmingly sorry for myself.  Hah, am I painting a sufficiently woeful picture here?

As I told Michael last night, he really picked a hell of a time to go to the U.S. for a full week.  He heaped insult to injury by responding that he sure was happy to have dodged this parenting bullet!  (i.e., dealing with taking Lola to the doctor 3 times in 6 days).

But then he also made me feel validated when, one day earlier this week, he wrote in short, simple texts (as if the effort to do anything more would be deadly):

"Exhausting day

I don't know how you did it in Australia

My mind is just shot"

He was referring to my insane cooped-up-in-a-conference-room-hunched-over-a-laptop-until-you-sign-this-or-die experience last year (I still can't think of Sydney without a shudder, and I was also 7 months pregnant, thankyouverymuch).  

And, on another day, after running through his crazy negotiation/meetings/work schedule while jetlagged and on very little sleep, exclaiming to me in genuine awe and horror (in relation to traveling and still having to juggle a ridiculous workload while traveling), "Allison, what have you been DOING?!"   

I just laugh because I have either become inured to it, have been very effectively brainwashed, have a case of Stockholm Syndrome, or am crazy.  Wait, are these all the same thing?

Turns out, just like it's nice to hear "you were right," it's also really nice to hear your other half sincerely and without any qualifications recognize the enormity of what you do (no matter what that is!)  I bet all marriages would be 100% stronger if all couples could switch roles with their partners for just a few days.