We Were Never Meant to Do This Alone

“I almost can’t believe it” - I told my husband the other day - “We’re at home with a sick kid, and she’s the only one feeling miserable. The house is tidy and functioning well. There’s a delicious homemade dinner for the second sick day in a row. And I don’t feel like I’m falling behind with anything!”

This feeling lasted for a whole three and a half days. On the fourth day we ran out of fresh fruit and dinner ingredients while all grocery stores were closed, our daughter got clingy and didn’t want to leave me for even a minute, and I realized there’s no way she’d be healthy enough to go to the daycare by the morning. Our bedtime schedule got so messed up while she was sick that she went to bed after midnight on the previous night. I lost all hope I would ever write my long overdue article for a magazine for kids. All I wanted was to take a shower and a nap whenever my kid would be napping - but she didn’t. At 10pm she was still loud, demanding, and active and at that point I just broke down in tears.

Don’t get me wrong, three and a half days is an amazing score. Whenever she got sick before, things fell into disarray in less than a day. Just taking care of food, the dishwasher, and laundry is challenging enough when you’re doing it with a deeply miserable toddler. Even if you put her in front of YouTube, she’ll still ask you to cheer her up every 5 minutes or so.

When you’re taking care of a sick child, the most challenging part is having no time to recover. They wake up multiple times at night because they’re feeling bad, and every night wears you off a little bit more. Every short break during the day goes to keeping your house somewhat functional, until you realize you’re hardly functional yourself. This is usually the point when I fall sick.

So how does everyone else deal with this? Surely I’m not the first one who has to take care of a sick child? I struggle to imagine how my own parents raised 5 kids - but then I remind myself we used to live with our grandma, who took care of us full-time.

It takes a miracle to find some time to rest - or someone brave enough not to worry about catching some germs. My parents are always willing to take care of us no matter how sick we are, but they live far away. Most of my mom friends cancel their plans to meet us when one of our kids is sick, and I can’t blame them for wanting to spare themselves from the same fate.

There’s only one friend who will come and help even when we’re sick, but she sometimes has other plans. If I had 3-4 trusted mom neighbors like this, I can’t even imagine how much easier my life would get. Today my friend and her kid bought me enough time to finally finish that article I was supposed to send before Christmas. Maybe if they come again, I’ll manage to recharge myself too.