The Diary of a Sick Mommy

For those of us that, pre-mommy-hood, worked in the REAL world, I'm sure you remember the days of feeling not-so-wonderful, and being able to pick up the phone to call in sick for the day. After making the phone call, and praying that you'd reach your boss's voice mail, you could simply curl up in bed and sleep the day, and hopefully the germs, away. Upon waking up at 4PM, just in time to catch Oprah, you could lay around, still in your pajamas, on the couch and wait for hubby to bring home take-out - assuming you were up to eating that evening.

Oh how I longed for those days today! Not the calling in sick part, but the ability to simply go back to bed, sleep the day away or lounge around on the couch. Sadly, those days are long gone!!!

After being woken up by my youngest at 2:23AM this morning, then again at 5:46AM, because he simply wasn't feeling well and needed the comfort of his mommy's arms - along with a dose of Motrin, then Tylenol a bit later, for the 101.9 degree temp he had - the God-blessed alarm starting buzzing at 6AM. Not mine, my husbands. He can sleep through just about anything, including the alarm clock, so at every 9 minute interval, I found myself kicking him so that he'd reach over and hit the snooze button. After a little more than an hour of this, my alarm clock started buzzing at 7:15, at which point, said husband finally crawled out of bed and headed toward the shower. At about that same time, my youngest decided he was ready to be awake, and would make sure that I, along with the rest of the house, knew he was up. He started screaming at the top of his lungs, which caused him to start coughing, which, I thought, would produce a lung! It didn't thankfully, but the deep-throated, deep-chested cough only upset him more, causing him to scream louder.

It was at this moment that I decided that I didn't want to be a mommy today! The sun had only been up for an hour, I had been up 3 times since going to bed at 11PM, and my head felt like it would explode at any given moment. If only I had a substitute mommy I could ring up. But, that thought lasted only for a second, when I realized that if I didn't quickly respond to my screaming child, I would surely find a lung on the floor, so I dragged myself out bed and trudged up the stairs. About half-way up said stairs, I started to cough, and realized that if I didn't stop, my lung would soon be on the floor next to my child's! By the time I got to the top of the stairs, I was light-headed and praying that if I fell down, I'd fall forward toward the wall, versus backward toward the stairs! Thankfully neither occurred, and I made it to the boy's bedroom without having any accidents along the way. After retrieving the youngest from his crib, I had to then wake up our oldest, who sleeps as hard as his father. Ten minutes later, and much yelling, then coughing, then yelling, he finally sat up and informed me that he'd like toast for breakfast - in between sniffs & coughs.

From the boy's room, I headed up the hallway to my daughter's room, where I was greeted with a request for a "Pot Tot" for "bwefst". Since today was a school day for her too, I had to work at getting her to agree to something else - this was something I just wasn't up for, but my mommy-responsibility was strong and I just couldn't send her to school with a tummy full of processed fruit & sugar - we settled on a cereal bar. Hmmm...now that I think about it, I guess the processed fruit & sugar in the cereal bar wasn't much better than the Pot Tot she originally asked for. Oh well!!!

How I got down the stairs with the baby in hand, and still light-headed, is a blur, but I managed it somehow - must be my super-mommy powers!

After allot of yelling from the kids, crying from the sick baby, and coughing from mommy and baby, we managed to get out the door and off to the appropriate schools. After a quick drive through my favorite fast-food breakfast spot, baby & mommy headed home. When I pulled into the driveway, I noticed that Ian had fallen asleep, so it was obvious to me that he wasn't feeling well at all - he takes 1 nap a day, and it's never only 2 short hours after waking up! Anyway, I decided to allow him an early nap, in hopes of catching a nap myself. It didn't happen, but it was a nice thought. Ian got a nice 2 hour nap, while I sat on the couch and shivered under a blanket - I obviously had the fever that Ian had had last night. Great! What's a sick mommy to do? Contact daddy - via Instant Message. But to my great dismay, daddy was too busy to leave his job, so it was up to me to muster all of my strength and 'get through' the day.

The rest of my day went as follows:
12:30 - get baby up from his nap to find that baby feels cool and seems to be feeling better.
12:35 - change dirty diaper and head downstairs for lunch - baby's not mine!
12:55-2:05 - play with baby and keep him occupied until it's time to leave to go get big sister
2:06 - head out the door to get big sister and discover that a thunderstorm is on it's way
2:07-2:28 - drive through cloud bursts and arrive at school where it has apparently already rained
2:29-2:34 - get big sister from her class and race back to the car to beat the next downpour of rain already starting
2:35-3:05 - drive really slowly home because I cannot see out of the front windshield due to the buckets of rain being released from the clouds above
3:06-4:01 - sit on couch and attempt to stay awake and alert until big brother's bus drives passed house
4:02-4:05 - stand outside and yell at big brother to please hurry up, walk faster, run, and get into the house because it's beginning to sprinkle again!
4:07-4:20 - chat online with daddy and ask if he'd be willing to bring home take-out for dinner; daddy says no; mommy reluctantly agrees to cook dinner.
4:21-5:05 - prep dinner and hope I don't pass out
5:06-5:35 - get dinner in the oven and microwave (I'm not Martha Stewart and never claimed to be!)
5:45-6:05 - sit down to dinner with the entire family and hope that no one spills anything.
6:06 - 6:33 - clean kitchen
6:34-now - blog about my day and how utterly awful I feel

So, that's the diary of a sick mommy. It's now 7:26 and I'm getting ready to go get the kids dressed for bed. Daddy has agreed to help - actually, it's understood that he will in fact dress at least 1 child and brush said child's teeth - then it will be a joint effort on mommy & daddy's part to say prayers and get all 3 kids to their appropriate bed. Once that task has been completed, I think I'm going to go soak my achy body in a bath full of bubbles and hope for a miraculous healing because I do not think I can get through another day feeling like I do now.