The Season of Sickness

Whenever your child is sick you go on overdrive to ensure they are comfortable and receiving all remedies to help them heal as fast as possible.  However, who is there to do that when you are sick? 

As a parent, you often sacrifice your health for that of your children.  You work when you are sick in order to save your sick days to take care of a sick child, you sit up nights and never catch up on sleep; everything you do is for their benefit.  I love this about parenthood, and yet hate it.  I have been sick for three weeks.  I am not taking time off because if my daughter gets sick, I will need to stay home with her.  I am just so tired! 

The great thing about my job is that I have half days!  I am currently part-time(which basically means I work full time for part-time pay.)One benefit of this is that at least one day a week I get off half a day.  I usually use this time to do laundry, pick up around the house, or start dinner before I pick up my daughter.  However, this week I am using it to rest and relax!  In the past I would not have taken advantage of this; I have since learned that I need rest too!  I, in fact, learned this the hard way!  Last Christmas Break (I am a teacher), my daughter caught the flu, of course on the very day we got out for break.  By the time the weekend was over I had it too.  With both of us sick and my husband having to work extra, there was no one to take care of us.  My mom ended up driving up for a couple of days and then bringing us back home with her.  She was generous enough to allow us to stay, somewhat supervised in her home until my husband was off for the holidays to come get us.  I don’t know what I would have done if she hadn’t been able to help us. 

This is one reason we moved closer to them and my –in laws.  They are all getting older and could need help in the future and living closer allowed us to be able to help with that.  In addition, with a toddler, we need help too.  Living close allows us to help each other. 

I don’t know if I offered many words of wisdom, but hopefully this will help you be able to ask for help and accept it when it arrives!