Why did no one tell me about life as a mom while sick?
I knew I was coming down with something on Thursday evening when I was doing yoga. I was practicing a breathing technique and I felt stuffy. I knew the timing was right for my annual sinus infection. Cue Friday with a headache, low-grade fever, runny nose, sinus pressure, and the post nasal drip sore throat. Needless to say, I was sick and felt like poo.
Pre-kid times, I would have Netflix and chilled so hard. I would have only emerged from my sick bed to go potty, get water, and for the occasional snack of whatever unhealthy thing I had that didn’t require cooking.
However, no one told me that as a mom, your kids don’t care if you are sick. The pre-kid sickness routine? LOL. THAT’S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.
Even though you are sick, you still have to get up every morning before the sun to make breakfast and lunches. You still have to get the kids out the door. You still have to go to work. You still have to go to the grocery store. You still have to clean the house. You still have to make dinner, or at the very least, order take out. You still have to play with the kids. You still have to make sure everything gets done even though you are a walking zombie with tissues shoved up your nose to prevent the snot from dripping all over the place.
The best part is when people say, “Oh you look terrible. You need to go take a rest. The other stuff can wait.” LOL. What planet do they live on!? Because I need a ticket to that “sick-ation” ASAP. On planet mom, the other stuff doesn’t wait. The dishes just keep piling up. The laundry will never, ever get done. The dog hair will continue to pile up on the carpet. The cat’s fur ball that she threw up at 2 AM on the stairs and you promptly stepped on barefoot this morning will still be there three days from now if you don’t clean it up pronto. Oh and if you don’t feed the kids, they turn into crazy monsters.
As for rest, you can try taking a nap. But you better sleep with one eye open and pray that your kids don’t kill each other while you try to dose off. But again, good luck with that. Because I can almost guarantee you, that’s when your little one repeatedly tries to stick their fingers up your nose like they are trying to explore a gold mine, or the older one will fall off the swing set because they thought they could fly. The best you can hope for is that everyone goes to bed on time and the kids stay in bed so you can get more than six hours of sleep.
So, the annual sinus infection that normally takes five days to fully recover from, now takes ten days, possibly twelve, because you can’t just stop and chill like you need too. Even though you try to keep up with the cleaning, dishes, laundry, etc, it will still get out of your control and you will still spend an extra week just trying to get caught up on everything that didn’t get done while you were down for the count.
The worst part of being sick is the feeling the mom guilt. I have never in my life felt the mom guilt so bad as when I am sick. Then add on the negative self-talk of failure and the rising anxiety of not being good enough, even though you are sick as a dog. The mental war I waged on myself as a sick mom was far worse than any physical sickness to date that I have ever had.
So if you are that sick mom, I feel you! And if you know someone who is that sick mom, go take over her mom duties. Go clean, do the laundry, make the family dinner, take the kids out of the house so she can rest. And tell her she is loved!
