Sick Days

Ms. O was sick last week. Nothing serious, it was just a cold. Usually Mr. M and I will trade off sick days when Ms. O is sick but Mr. M was booked up with meetings and lunches all week so I got to stay home with her for two whole days.

She came into my room Monday night at about midnight and asked me to turn on the thing that puts water in the air so she can breathe (humidifier). See, Ms. O sucks her thumb (yes, she’s 7; let us put aside this argument for a later date). When you have a cold, as a thumb sucker, you have to make an impossible choice - breathe or sleep. She couldn’t suck her thumb because she couldn’t breathe out of her nose and she couldn’t sleep because she couldn’t suck her thumb.

At about 1:00am she came into my room and said “It’s not working, I still can’t breathe”. At 1:30 I could hear her crying quietly in her bedroom at which point I got up, brought her some water and settled into bed with her. I figured I’m not sleeping as long as she’s not sleeping; we might as well not sleep together.

The first day home we spent catching up on our sleep and lazing around.

The second day, both feeling pretty good, we got productive. I washed, dried and put away all of the laundry (in one day!), painted the spare room, cooked dinner and made brownies. All accomplished while logging on to my work email every hour or so to keep tabs on things. I put Ms O. to work creating works of art to hang in the freshly painted spare room and secured two bedside tables from my mom.

All in all, the sense of accomplishment I felt was not anything I ever get out of a day at work, and I love my job. I think it’s time to figure out how to be a stay at home mom…