I normally don't get sick. And when I do it's never enough to keep me home. Not that I mind being home but after a day or two I begin to feel like I'm under house arrest. But these past few days have been much worse than usual. And sickness in our house is cyclical: one kid brings it home from school, it infects my wife or myself, we infect our other child and by the time everyone has recovered we all get sick again. So far for this run it's just my youngest daughter and myself. And it happened at an inconvenient time as we missed Easter dinner which means I missed free, gourmet food. I had been feeling unwell since Friday but would have been able to sit through dinner. My youngest however was running a high fever, always a frightening time as a parent. I remember my first born getting sick for the first time and how she felt limp in my arms. My wife and I were panicking and had to call the after hours care on Sunday evening. Luckily we were told to just give our daughter Tylenol and within hours she was back to normal. But nothing really prepares you for that. Back to this past week, Easter night was the worst I have felt in quite a while, much worse than Covid. Due to my sinus infection, I ended up with a clogged and painful ear. It made me experience some of the worse vertigo that I ever have lived through. I could barely make it out of bed and kept stumbling around like the town drunk. I also left my undigested dinner all over the floor. It was quite awful. One of the things that you quickly realize when you're sick as a parent is that more than likely one of your children will be sick too. And you can't just rest and relax, it's a parent's job to take care of their children, especially when their sick. A couple years back we all go Covid. The first day was the roughest but after that I felt fine. The rest of the family was generally okay but that was definitely a fun time. As a parent, we also become aware of the various children's medications available at the local grocery store. I've stood in the medication aisle for hours comparing the ingredients of Dimetapp versus Mucinex. And then trying to find the cheaper store brand which is usually sold out. It reminds me of going to the video rental store when I was younger and finding out that the new release you wanted to rent has already been spoken for. It's very disappointing. Vomit aka puke, is another major aspect of parenting. Bodily fluids used to gross me out. If I saw vomit it would instantly trigger my desire to vomit. But after cleaning up more than, oh, fifty gallons of vomit I have become used to it. Both of my kids like to puke at the dinner table, while eating dinner. There's nothing better than seeing mac and cheese exploding from a tiny mouth. And the smell....actually it smells generally the same as it did before being eaten and expelled. I can actually now not lose my appetite and clean up with the desire to continue eating. It's a great coping mechanism and a must have as a parent. I hope that I'm not scaring any of you but it's just something that you will experience. As a parent we can no longer take care of our needs first, even if we're completely incapacitated
. Cheers!
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