I’ve got two sick kids home today.
The eldest is sequestered in her bedroom with the portable DVD player and a barf bowl. The middle is sprawled on the couch, finding something wrong with everything I offer her, focused on nothing but her own personal misery. It’s one of those “I’m SO not going to get anything accomplished” days today so I have donned my housecoat and am embracing the quiet. (Well, the few moments of quiet before my middle child starts bellowing in disgust about the temperature of her ginger ale.)
Now that two out of three of my kids can actually aim into a barf bowl, sick days are a lot easier. I remember our kids as toddlers, hosing the walls with vomit, their mouth forming a perfect “O” as they defiled our entire home with their liquid disease.
When I was little, my mom pampered us on sick days, bringing us juice, renting us special movies to watch, doting on us. I like to do the same. My kids seem so little when they’re sick, reduced to little lumps of need, and I can’t help but stroke their sweaty brows, offer them drinks and whisper well wishes into their ears.
Do your kids get easier or harder to deal with when they are ill? My oldest gets quiet and stoic and sad and sleepy, while my middle daughter gets grumpy and angry and demanding. (Wait, she’s always like that. It just amplifies her tendencies, I suppose.)
Stay healthy, all you mommas! Heaven knows WE never get sick days.
I have always secretly liked their sick days- (fever and cold not barfing- that is never good) because I get to spoil and care for them differently.
You are right- I have not been sick for 10 years – my business and family could not fill in for me!
feel better, household!
OMG – you captured it so perfectly. I remember those days of cleaning vomit-y bedsheets with such horror. i kind of like sick days for the same reason – it’s the only time my boy let’s me baby him anymore.
It’s SO nice when they can aim their vomit in a bowl/toilet!
My girls both get a bit whiny but mostly they sleep sleep sleep. They want lots of extra snuggles too, which is fine by me.
Hope your household is feeling better soon!
Man, you cannot get a break, Amanda!! Poor them… and POOR YOU!! Uch. I hope everyone gets better really fast. I’ma go wash my hands right now.