Why “Wife” Is A Dirty Word

by Jeanann Pannasch

“How many times did you vomit?” my husband, Andrew, asked, smiling at me as the ski lift climbed.

What? Did he really just ask me that? I thought.

Even worse, his tone suggested that there was a competitive bent to his questioning—like we were about to engage in our own game of “Who Was More Sick,” right there in the sky.

Earlier in the week, we’d both fallen victim to a stomach virus that made its first attack on our toddler daughter, Sadie. We were standing at the Air Canada counter, eager to embark on our snowboarding vacation, when Sadie first tossed her organic cookies.

I had always believed that parents were impervious to their children’s ailments, until I learned better firsthand. For Andrew and I, it started with a middle of the night tummy grumble and got worse from there. But three days later we managed to suit up and find ourselves high above the snow-covered mountains of British Columbia. Our vacation was beginning—or so I thought.