That’s not entirely true. Moms do get sick days, but they are very rare. Like a snow leopard. Or Bigfoot.
When I worked as a school psychologist, my role was fairly flexible – sometimes I worked with kids, sometimes I had meetings, and sometimes (a lot of the time) I wrote reports. When I didn’t feel great, I could still go to work but was able to structure my day such that I could hide in my office and avoid the more stressful aspects of my job.
Now, I have to be extremely sick to warrant a sick day, which is essentially a sick day for my husband. On days when I have a headache, a cold, or just feel run down, I still have to be mom. There is no office to hide in. There are still mouths to feed, pee messes to clean up, and hugs to be given. Perhaps you are lucky enough to have dependable family near you or to have paid help occasionally. Since its just us, I handle those sick-ish days by keeping things simple.
You will notice that I often bring up keeping things simple because it is the key to our survival as a family of 6, and it’s a key component of health in general. The more stressed people get, the less healthy they become. The more stressed I get, the more irritable I become, and the more I find myself drifting away from the positive mom that I want to be (click here to read my post on that).
Today I have a virus slowing me down, and as the day has worn on, I’m also getting a headache. Today we stayed at home and took things easy. We had Taco Bell for lunch – I’m not ashamed. When my son asked for a banana, he may have gotten fruit snacks instead. There were no finger paints today. No playing in the mud. There were tablets, TV, and maybe a few washable crayons. When I feel like myself again, we will do all the fun things, but for now, this is as close as I can get to hiding in my office.
How do you survive days like these?