Sick Day

Yesterday, I had my first sick day in over five years. "Whaaa? But I remember you complaining about being sick many times before, even on this very blog!" say you. True, true. It isn't that I haven't been sick at all in the last five years, for I certainly wind up coming down with most of Kiddo's illnesses (something to do with being Mommy the human Kleenex, I suppose). But yesterday was the first day that I actually had a sick day since Kiddo was born.

As in, I stayed in bed almost the entire day, save a trip downstairs for some food and getting up to shower in the afternoon. Hubby got Kiddo her breakfast and made her lunch (which I'd been too wiped out and feverish to make the night before, as I usually do), so all I had to do was get her onto the bus before I could go back to bed, and then I could stay in bed until it was time to collect her from the bus at 3:15.

Now, when I was working, I rarely took a sick day. I had to be really, really sick - I even went to work in the waning stages of a migraine, though granted, I don't know how productive I actually was during those moments... Anyhow, to give you an example of how little sick time I used, by the time we adopted Kiddo, I had accrued so many hours of unused sick time that I was able to take a month and a half off, paid, out of that stockpile. (Because, you know, when you become a parent through adoption, you're not necessarily going to get maternity leave, especially paid maternity leave...) But when I was really, really sick, nothing helped me kick the germies more than just huddling in bed with a box of Puffs Plus and possibly a fair amount of Nyquil coursing through my veins. That all changed once Kiddo came home. There is no "sick day" for a stay-at-home mom with a child at home. Yes, there certainly have been times that I've been sick, and times when Hubby came home or stayed home and took over the childcare duties so I could stay in bed, but it wasn't the same. (I'm sure all the other stay-at-home parents out there know what I'm talking about!)

Yesterday, with kiddo gone for the majority of the day, hearkened back to those pre-Kiddo times when I'd stay home, sick. I slept and slept. I watched some TV - I got sucked into the Kenneth Branagh version of Hamlet for a few hours (I am a sucker for Shakespeare, it's true) and then balanced that with half an infomercial about a "miracle" ceramic hair styling contraption and part of the Tyra Banks show. (Turns out that while I love her on America's Next Top Model, and oh yes, but I love that show - cannot wait for next week's makeover episode woo-hoo!, I am not such a fan of her talk show. It's a little too "Look at me, I'm TYRA!" for my taste.) I read and slept and ate some yogurt and cereal and blew my nose about a zillion times. Seriously - I could've recreated the Great Blizzard of '93 with the number of balled-up tissues I went through in a matter of hours. I did pop in on the internet a couple of times, but not for very long, as my head was pounding and much preferred the comfort of reclining on a pillow. (Yes, I know, I was pathetic - barely able to keep my head upright, yeesh.) Eventually, I went and stood in the shower until the water ran cold, then got dressed and shuffled off to the corner to wait for the school bus. That was the most taxing thing I did all day - walking to and from the corner.

While I miss many things about the way things were up until two weeks ago when Kiddo started kindergarten, having the chance to actually take a sick day and spend it in bed is definitely a silver lining to that cloud. I'm feeling a good bit improved as of today - still have a fever, but it is lower, and my head isn't pounding like it was yesterday (hence my ability to sit here and blog) - and I fully credit that to the ability to sack out and sleep it off yesterday.

Oh, and on the Kiddo IEP front - a quick update. We have an emergency CSE meeting set for first thing Monday morning that Hubby and I will both be attending. Also, the school managed to do Kiddo's full sensory diet both Thursday and Friday, and guess what? With the full sensory diet, Kiddo had two perfectly good days. Whaddya know - give her the sensory input that she needs, and she is able to be successful in school, imagine that... I'll let you know how things go after the meeting.