Take a Sick Day

Yesterday was a long, long day.

I kept looking at the clock thinking, "How, how, HOW can it only be 9:15?  When I only got out of bed at 8:20?  And we've had breakfast and played and read books and been outdoors since then?".  It just lasted forever.

I'm sick.

I hate getting sick.  On the best of days I wake and know I have to ration my energy to successfully make it through the day.  I don't start off strong only to fade at noon.  I don't break into song while sculpting fruit animals and making smiley face pancakes at dawn.  Nope.  Over time I've learned that to have a "successful day", I need to be cool.  From the hours of 8:00 AM till dinner time I'm a one-woman-show, and to keep my audience amused, entertained, educated and, well, alive,  I just need to be cool, man.

So when I wake and feel the stirrings of a cold that I know is going to drag me down, it's going to be a challenge to make it a successful day at home with the kids.

What is a "successful day", then?  Well I'm glad you asked.  Oh you didn't ask?  Or don't care?  Well too bad.  I'm too sick to really give a fluff.

When I fall into bed at the end of each day and reflect on what we've done, I consider it to have been a successful day with my bozos if we've managed to accomplish a few essential things:

1. An outing of some sort:  This can include going to the dollar or grocery store.  Just so that my children still know there is a world going on outside of their own house, full of strange and weird people.  It's important to mingle among them from time to time.  Build up an immunity.  And so on and so fourth.  Believe me.  The day-time dollar store crowd requires a thick skin.
2. A creative activity:  Like play doh.  Or colouring.  Or baking.  The inner moron in me tends to shy away from these sort of activities, but lately I've been trying to push myself and carve out time and patience to expose my children to the sorts of activities that most kids have been doing since the age of six months.  I start out strong - I arrange all the ingredients for chocolate chip cookies into neat piles, measuring cups and spoons at the ready.  I get the step stools gathered 'round the kitchen counter.  KitchenAid sparkly and ready to whirl.  Tiny aprons tied snugly round tiny waists.  But at some point someone will spill the pre-measured flour-and-baking-soda mixture leaving me sweaty, wondering how the chemistry of the final product will be altered missing 1/36th of the required dose of baking soda.  I start to clean up before we've even finished making the dough.  I fret about tiny tongues licking the measuring spoons before we've measured the vanilla.  In short, I efficiently drain the fun right out of the activity.  For myself, anyway.  The kids still seem to enjoy it, and their nutty mother.
3. A good nap/quiet time, but not too good:  My daughter is still of the napping age, and my son is not.  I most definitely need the time to myself in the late afternoons to regroup, to prepare dinner, and to watch some HGTV.  However, around the 2-hour mark I begin to feel guilty that I've "shut away" my son in his room and that my daughter won't sleep properly if I let her nap too long (she always sleeps just fine, for the record).  I become my own worst enemy and ruin my break time.  I get my son out of his room so that he can be underfoot and annoying while I try to make dinner, and wake my daughter before she is done her nap making sure she is good and cranky for the rest of the day.  
4. Quality time:  You would think a stay-at-home Mother wouldn't worry too much about "quality time" with her children, but, as my husband likes to point out, I can worry about anything.  So I do.  I worry I didn't TEACH them anything, or READ to them enough on a given day.  I worry that my son doesn't like to try to write his name, or that my daughter can't seem to get her colours down.  I worry they will think I'm boring, absent, strict, moody.  I worry we didn't do anything that they will remember when they are older.  I just stew.

So, needless to say, according to my own measuring scale,  yesterday was not a "success".  I waited for meal times, then I fed them.  I tried to stay awake.  I watched as they played together (God love them) for most of the day, with my directing them to different activities from time to time.  I put on a movie.  I rushed nap time, which turned out to be an epic fail because after 30 minutes my daughter was up suffering from diarrhea that ended her rest, poor bird.  I made a dinner (chicken soup) which they did not eat, then sent them outside again to play with one another.  I celebrated when it was bath time.  I went to bed at 10:00 PM only to be woken at 1:00AM, 1:20AM and 1:40AM by my poor sick daughter who told me in her own little way she had a bad tummy.  I rocked her until the baby advil soothed her then kissed her sweaty head one last time before passing out in my own bed, thanking my lucky stars we don't have a newborn that might also wake me up.

And here I am again today, sick.  Tired.  Not much zeal or zest for being a "Great Mommy" today.  Or even just a "Mommy", to be honest.  Today will be better, though.  It's a preschool day so we will in fact be at least forced out of the house.  Maybe get some groceries.  Or bring Claire to the park while Joshua is being better-cared-for by his teachers.

Days like this I long for the sick days I used to guiltily enjoy when I was a non-mother.  Calling the boss to report whatever vague illness I happened to be suffering from at the time.  Crawling back into bed.  Getting the rest I had convinced myself I needed.  

But these days it doesn't matter, in general.  There is no back-up plan.  I am the backup plan.  It's just me.  And after work, it's my husband and me.  There is no one to call.  No one to lean on.  There is no break.  No holidays.  No sick days.  These facts don't normally bother me.  But when we're all sick and suffering, that's when it really hits home.  We're on our own, baby. 

Hopefully today I'll be able to pull it together, and teach myself that sick days can also be successful days.  That I can be graceful in the face of a cold.  Be fun with a fever.  Be sweet with a sore throat.  Be an enthusiastic teacher with an achy body.  Create some magical memories that we will all treasure long after they have grown and moved out of the house, which I know will happen so fast it'll take my breath away.

Maybe just one more movie...