Ivy says:
It all starts with a tickle in the back of your throat or a case of the green-apple quickstep. Next thing you know, you’re full-blown sick, fever, chills; you know how it is. So, what do you do when you’re sick? Do you let the kids watch TV all day while you convalesce on the couch? Do you have a group of mommy friends that descend on your house and help out? I want to hear it from you!
As soon as I start feeling yucky, I jump into a shower and scrub clean, dry my hair, dress nice but comfortably, pour lots of water and juice, take vitamins and tidy up. Opening windows really helps me, too. Gotta get moving and push on through small head colds. Big ones, I just get myself and a corner of the house clean and hide. Husband brings home take-out. Baby gets away with murder. heh.
The couch, the couch! I’ve found that kids can be surprisingly independent when they need to be. Just try not to think about what the kitchen looks like when you finally get up!
I take a shower and get really clean like Jasi said. Then I take a bunch of drugs (over the counter of course hehehe) and wrap myself in a blanket and have hubby cook for me while I watch movies on tv all day. Boy, I sure wish I felt like I was coming down with something….anything…..
Did you become ill after I met you on the plane? On one of my 2 flights (I forget which one) some guy sneezed a half dozen times in a row, grossing all of us out.
To answer the original question, Spouse always acts as if the world has ended and becomes a total baby when he’s ill. When I get sick, I basically suck it up and deal, making all others as cranky as I for the effort. Then we often have a “discussion” after the fact about the inequality of parenting.
I thought I was the only person who showered and then cleaned and then collapsed. I don’t like to be sick in a cluttered house.
Now that the kid is older, if I’m sick and she isn’t I just lay around and she eats whatever she fixes. Most of the time, she and I are sick together which makes it easier in a strange sort of way.
After I make everyone else as completely miserable as I feel (“ain’t nobody happy if momma ain’t happy”), they usually (though not always) decide that “Hey! Mom’s sick! She should be in bed!” and send me to my room where I crawl under as many blankets as I can find and pray for a swift, painless death. I do little more than sleep, cuddle kitties, and drink apple juice and/or water for as long as it takes for my body to heal.
The kid has gotten good at tucking me in and checking on me every few hours, the felines are good at making sure I stay in bed, and the husband manages to maintain at least some control of the household without leaving things in a state that will piss me off when I finally crawl out of bed. (He’ll never again make the mistake of waking me while I’m sick to tell me all the dishes are dirty and I need to wash them because he and the kid are hungry, nor will he ever wake me again to tell me I need to cook for them.)
If it’s towards evening and I feel sick, I take a dose of Nyquil and sleep it off. If that doesn’t work, I lay around (I usually shower AFTER I feel better) reading and dragging myself up to cook French onion soup. It’s dead easy and it always soothes and heals. I drink a lot of water and hot tea, take lots of Vitamin C. I don’t take OTC drugs unless I really really have to go somewhere.
The one time I was bad sick since my daughter was born, my in-laws came and got her and my hubby just stayed away from my strep germs. Both our families live nearby and they always help with childcare or food or running to the drugstore. I’m sure good friends would do this in a pinch, too.
Who has time to be sick?