Down With The Sickness

When my husband calls in sick and hides in bed, I sometimes whisper to myself "it must be nice to call in sick. I wish I had that luxury."

As a Mom, when you're here by yourself, there is no "out". The kid needs to eat, needs to be tended to, and the option to just check out mentally, lay in bed and recover isn't available to me.

There is, I'm learning, a middle ground. A place where Mommy sits on the couch like a sack of mucusy garbage and allows her daughter to do anything she'd like, as long as no one's being hurt and nothing of real value is being destroyed. As I type, snot bubbling from my nose, my head foggy, and my non-existant energy being drained, my dear daughter is TP'ing the kitchen. She's quiet and it's costing me almost nothing. Normally, of course, I'd tell her that it's wasteful and toilet paper is not a toy. I, however, feel far from normal, and desperate times call for desperate measures. At this point, I'd let her paint with ketchup if it meant just 5 more minutes of nursing my swollen sinuses in relative quiet.

Of course, the real relief comes in those two very special words... "Daddy's Home!"