It’s been a rough couple of months over here at my house. At the end of January, I broke my foot, which was surprisingly traumatic, and definitely dramatic. The drama may have been a little overplayed on my part, but heLLO, my foot is on fire! I can’t walk! Maintaining even the smallest level of personal hygiene is a major effort! Have YOU ever tried to sit on a toilet without putting even the teeniest amount of weight on one foot? I had a boot on for 4 weeks, and then, horror of horrors, when the boot came off, my right leg was SMALLER than my LEFT! I’m like a lopsided polio patient! And my foot is still too weak to do calve raises, so who knows how long I’ll have to be asymmetrical. And I was scheduled to run a 10K at the end of this month, my first race in over a year! I had PAID THE FEE AND EVERYTHING! AAAAAARRGH!
And just when I was getting my mojo back, when I was into the groove of reclaiming my house and my garden from the forces of entropy, I got kicked in the chest by bronchitis. So just as I had stopped writhing in pain about my foot at night, I develop a cough. A cough that keeps me and everybody else in the house from sleeping. A cough so loud and so long that I pee just a little every time. (Childbirth==the gift that keeps on giving.)
I figured out what kind of toll this was taking on my kids when I trudged from my bed down to dinner the other night. My 10 year old sort of patted my hand, and said, “Is it just me, or have you been spending a LOT of time in bed lately?”
He’s not wrong.
So yesterday, I tried to power through it. Well, sort of. I slept in until around 10, allowing again for the forces of entropy (he’s 10) and chaos (she’s 4) to engulf my home. I’ll clean it up later, I told myself, and got up late to face the day. I got myself and my daughter breakfast, and then we snuggled watching some shows on Netflix. I still felt foggy, and decided a nice hot shower would do the trick, and then I should throw in a load of laundry, just for good measure. I did both of those things, and felt, if anything, even worse. I finally decided to take my temperature, and gave myself permission to lie down when the thermometer read 100.0.
I’m not a fighter. Even on a good day, I’m not particularly productive, and I’ve been known to stay in my pajamas well past noon without having a temperature, just because I can. I am also not a fan of powering through sickness, just because I think crazy people do that and you should just let your body rest already, crazy.
But I have spent so much time lying down the last two months, and I have seen the effects of atrophy on my body and on my family, that when I told myself to take a nap this afternoon, it was like my body said, “Really? REALLY? Dude, you keep this up, and in 2 days your 4 year old will be able to beat you in an arm wrestle.” It’s like I’m ready to get back in the swing of things, REALLY ready to get back in the swing of things, and the universe says, “Ha ha, nice try, SUCKA!”
So how do you be a mom when you are not exactly running at 100%? What do YOU do on mom’s sick day?
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