No More Sick Days

There is so much snot in my life right now, people. It’s pouring from the heads of both children and then today it started pouring out of mine.

Three sickies in this house. Coughing. Sneezing. Snot nosing.

Glamorous life I’m living.

In the sickness, I’ve stumbled upon what might be the most unfortunate aspect of being a stay-at-home-mom.

There are no sick days.

I developed a fever at some point last night so when I woke up this morning, my body ached. My skin hurt to the touch. My joints felt stiff and creaky. I was shivering. Whatever Joshua had was now making its way through me and once we got up and moving, it was clear that Emma caught his snots too.

Joshua’s on the mend now, but he’s a toucher, that kid. At any given moment, some part of him must be touching some part of me. Even when my skin is in pain.

Because it’s my luck, Emma napped for 15 minutes at a time, exactly 3 times. All day. And spent the rest of the day either happily crawling everywhere or wanting to be held. I can’t exactly blame her. The poor thing doesn’t know what’s hit her with the sneezing and the sneak attack with a baby wipe and saline spray.

All I wanted was for both kids to nap so that I could lay down and rest. Or at least for Emma to nap. I can chill on the couch while Joshua watches Wall-E for the 100th time, but Emma requires vigilance to make sure she doesn’t chew on the dog’s tail or crack her head open on the floor.

In the world of working outside the home, if I got sick I had the option to call in, drop Joshua off at daycare, and spend the day resting and getting better. (Assuming, that is, that my kids weren’t also sick. I’m not that douchey parent who sends her kid to school to spread infection by spraying snot all over everyone else.) It may not have been ideal, but the option was there. I may have chosen to push through it, to go in and teach instead of write sub plans and lose a day. But there was a choice.

As a stay at home mom, that’s not really an option. There is no calling in. There are no days off. Resting and taking care of myself isn’t really something I get to do.

And if it’s supposed to be an option and there’s some secret as to how we make that happen, that chapter was conveniently torn out of my SAHManual.

This is the hardest thing I’ve done so far on this new adventure, I think. The day is done and somehow we all survived. So here’s hoping tomorrow brings health and less snot.