Thoughts on Motherhood : When Mama is sick.

*Disclaimer: Go ahead and grab your coffee because this
is going to take a while.
Mama needs to bitch!

I know just as well as the next lady that no one likes a martyr. I do my best to fulfil my motherly duties and not feel sorry for myself in the process. I'm the one that pops out of my chair at dinner if anyone needs anything while were eating. Sure, my meal be cold when I finally sit down to eat it, but I try no to pout about it. For the most part, I do my job with a smile.

There is just one complaint that I have about this Stay at Home Mom position and that is the fact that I don't get sick days. Our budget is so tight that my husband can't afford to take the day off work if I get sick. Inevitably, my mom (who is my babysitter) either gets sick at the same time or has an important event coming up that she can't get sick before.

That leaves me, moaning on the couch with children literally sitting on my head. I am a firm believer that a day in bed works wonders for a sick person and used to practice this theory whenever I was sick before I became a mom. Those days are long gone. The worst is when I am throwing up, I tell the boys that we are playing hide and seek and while they are off hiding, I take a personal moment to puke my guts out without a child pulling my hair or worrying about me. If I have a cold, I run my errands with a red nose and puffy eyes. A box of tissues is in one hand and a sippy cup is in the other. If I have a pounding headache then I lay on the floor surrounded by toys with a baby poking me in the eye while saying "nose?"

I don't get sick days and it's lousy.

Last week I had a tummy bug and it was a doozy. My husband decided to go into work late so that I could get a little sleep in the morning. He was getting Griffin ready for school and had offered to drop him off on his way to work. As I lay in my bed trying my hardest to pass out, I could hear my little army of men in the living room. Now, I've mentioned before that my husband is a capable man but I could hear Koen raising a stink for me. I rolled over and tried my hardest to ignore it. Then my mind started to wander a bit. "Oh no, today is "wear a cape to school" day and Roger doesn't know it. Will Griffin be the only kid at school without a cape? Does Roger know where the cape is? Do I know where the cape is? Crap, now I have to get up and find the damn cape." I thought as I dragged my sick achy body out of bed. There was no rest for this mama.

The best example of my plight presented itself yesterday afternoon. I clumsily stepped on a glass Christmas tree ornament that had fallen off of the tree. Of course, I shattered it and sliced the bottom of my foot. It wasn't a deep wound but it was in just the right spot to bleed profusely. I had picked an unfortunate time to get a wound on my foot because Griffin had just walked in from school and was famished. I should interject here and tell you that from the hours of three and six pm, my son eats nonstop. I am in a constant rotation in the kitchen fetching him nourishment. Once Koen sees the food going back and forth, he is all aflutter for a snack too. I am an underpaid and disgruntled waitress.

The point is, I was bleeding and I could not get it to stop because both of my children continuously asked me to get food for them. I literally had a trail of blood from the living room to the kitchen where I bled as I fetched food for half an hour. Just as I would sit down to dress the wound Koen would call out "Pwetzles?" and up I would go to grab the pretzels. I would apply pressure and just when it was about to stop Griffin would say "Will you get me some water?" I probably washed my hands twenty times as I attempted to stop the bleeding between grabbing food.

To add insult to injury, our First Aid kit was empty of all the supplies that I needed. It was like a bad nightmare. All I needed was a moment to put my foot up over my head while putting pressure on it. I contemplated packing the kids up and running over to Urgent Care for a little help. Panic started to set in when my sweet friend Scarlet called and talked me through it. I finally had to put my bloody foot down and tell them to eat their pretzels and shut it while Mommy tried to stop the bleeding. Scarlet dropped off some first aid tape and I was able to finally dress my wound. The blood stopped, the children were well fed, my foot was bandaged, and you can bet your sweet ass that I pouted for the rest of the day.

The end.