When Sickness Strikes

I started my week with a debilitating migraine and nausea that ended with a respiratory virus and symptoms of sore throat, fever, chills, body aches, dry heaving, stomach pain, hacking cough and lethargy. During the middle of the week two of my children were sick and by the weekend my husband joined in on the fun.

Parenting sick children is tough. But parenting sick children when you, as parents, are sick is extremely difficult.

Thankfully, our baby did not get sick this time. He is an extremely laid back baby so this came in really handy when every inch of my body was aching and I wondered how I was going to survive the day. He was content to play beside me on the bed with a mountain of toys next to him so I could lay beside him moaning. I am also thankful for the age gap between my children as my oldest child, our daughter Grace, was able to play with her baby brother and look after him while her parents were “down and out” for most of the weekend.

[bctt tweet=”Believe it or not, I found positive aspects of being #sick. #momlife #cuphalffull #parenting @naomipelss” username=”losethecape”]

Yet amidst all of this misery and sickness I was able to think of some of the positives of when sickness strikes. Here are my top ten:

Cuddles. When my children are sick and fevered, they want to cuddle. I take advantage of this cuddle time knowing that my boys won’t always want to cuddle with their mommy.
Ice cream. I was actually craving ice cubes and could have eaten an entire bowl of ice cubes to soothe my throat. Since that seemed a little weird, I settled on ice cream. I treated myself and my sick children to ice cream. I think that is actually what my son and I had for lunch the one day. Why not? We were sick.
You are excused. When you are sick, you are excused from everything. It’s like that “get out of jail free card” from Monopoly. You just present the “sick card”. I can’t do the dishes right now (flash my sick card to my husband). I can’t get dressed or brush my hair. I can’t take the dog out. I can’t do laundry etc…
Sleep. You sleep because your body can do nothing else. Sleep is good.
You appreciate your Mom. I always want my Mom when I am sick. I just want someone to take care of me, make me feel better and bring me everything I need. She always told me, “this too shall pass” when I thought for sure I was dying a slow death. Now I have to look after myself, and my children. Perhaps some day my children will appreciate all the times I cared for them when they were sick.
T.V. time. When my six year old son was sick we spent the day in front of the television in a vegetative state. I actually found him in a trance at one point inches away from the television watching contestants on the Price is Right spin the “big wheel”. He looked up from the screen momentarily to ask me, “What IS this show?” This is the moment I introduced my son to the Price is Right. This makes me laugh.
Modern medicine. At least there is Tylenol and Advil for some relief. After you take some medicine, you start to feel human again, and can actually get a few things accomplished before it starts to wear off.
You are fostering independence in your children. When both my husband and I were sick on the weekend, our children basically had to “fend for themselves”. They survived alright. They were able to feed themselves and entertain themselves and even look after their baby brother. It was sink or swim time and I am so thankful they can “swim”. It also brings us back to #5. They were actually thankful when I was feeling well again.
You appreciate the “normal days”. My friend who is a mother to a child with special needs always talks about appreciating the boring or normal days. I understand a little bit about what she means. We should appreciate more the days when everything goes as planned and everyone feels well and you just go about your daily life.
It could always be worse. And of course I always feel bad for “momplaining” when really life is good. So we had a few sick days…so what? There are far worse scenarios and people going through so much worse that I cannot even imagine. Who am I to complain? My Mom was right when she said, “this too shall pass”. We got over it and life goes on. I even have some ice cream left over.

See? Despite feeling like crap, there are some good things too. What are your “positives”?