sick days

roses are red
violets are blue
i stink like barf
i think it's in my hair... 

dan, dear hubby, don't bother calling me to tell me this doesn't rhyme and makes no sense. The fact that it makes no sense and is completely dry is the whole point darling. It's called feelings. The women will get it. And, that, my dears, sets the tone of this post. ha ha!

Won't be writing much tonight... mostly because I'm still sitting in clothes that has dried barf on it, I have one of three hundred loads of laundry I've done this week in the washer ready for the changeover, I have two poptarts in the toaster calling my name and I've got 50 pages left of one of the girly-porn books I get myself addicted to in the read-it-all-in-24-hours style (girly porn = nora roberts novels, not seriously porn).

Here's the worst and best part of sick days. Jane has stomach flu. You never know when it's gone. Yesterday she was in the best mood. We went for a walk in the woods for some fresh air and I though, for sure, it was a one-off throw up instance. Then, she throws up after "supper" (barely any soup). Then she throws up right before bed.

So, I email my boss who is literally the best in the world. And, as usual, he responds with his unbelievably supportive and NON-I-should-never-have-hired-a-mother reply of "take care of your daughter, take all the time you need". And, yet, as a working Mom, I'm left with complete guilt. For those of you who don't have kids, it kind of feels like the same guilt you used to feel when you were in school and used to fake-sick to get out of a shift. I mean, technically, I am not sick. I am their employee. Not Jane. And, yet, I've never called in sick to work because I, myself, was sick. And, yet, I've racked up my share of sick days in 18 months. And, what's worse, is the not knowing how long I'll be off and the pressure I put on myself to be back within a day. And, the fear, that I won't be. And the fear that, worse, after Jane's done being sick, I'll be granted permission to begin barfing everywhere - hopefully I can avoid the shag rug which didn't fare so well today and, let me say candidly, is an effin' bitch to clean. I considered throwing it out altogether as it was near hell to clean it properly, while trying not to ruin the hardwood floor beneath, while trying to keep a curious, naked, cold, 2-yr-old who wanted another "pwetty dwess" while wanting to scrub the floor with mommy to stay on the "couch island". Oh, and trying to keep the cat, who I then realized had no food for god knows how long, from eating the thrown up mr. noodle soup off the floor. Fantastic.

You can say what you want, especially if you don't have kids, but it's part of the Mom code that we generally get first call when it comes to staying home with the sick babes. Partly because the babes always want their moms when they're sick. Partly because we probably wouldn't trust the dads to fully take care of our sick babies as we would. Partly because it's "expected" despite what we want to believe about the evolution of women's rights or whatever you want to call it. And, partly, because if I left Dan home with a sick Jane, he would, no doubt, get sick too and for some strange and suspicious reason, when he gets the same bug as Jane, his seems to hit him 50 times harder. Jane can have the stomach flu and go for a walk, be cheerful, be fun. Dan is on his death bed talking with that whining, raspy voice as if the stomach flu has cause his vocal cords distress... don't get me started. :p

Anyways. As I said, you never know when it's going to end. Today, despite being grouchier than normal, Jane was fine - no fever, no vomiting, nodda. Course, she ate nothing. But, we made a deal yesterday. If she drinks a lot of her juice, I won't check her temperature or give her medicine - most moms don't need a thermometer anyways to know that their babe has a fever. So, she ate nothing all day but 1/4 of a tim hortons bagel this am. This afternoon, I find a box of Mum-Mum crackers for babies - those ones that basically disolve on your tongue. So I offer them to her. She ate like 8-10 packages. Then she had some more mr. noodle soup for dinner.

So, ten minutes later I'm on my hands and knees cleaning out her reading tent because after ducking my head in to see how she was making out, I realized at some point in the past few days she must have had an accident in there and the thing smells like an outhouse in july... and I turn around after satisfactorily disinfecting the tent to see her standing, tense, and vomiting silently all over the shag rug. To which I respond as any mother does and hug her, letting her vomit all over me, because I don't want her to be scared.

And it starts all over. Tomorrow is another day. Another day away from work. Another day of hoping, praying for everyone's sake that Jane is vomit free for the entire day.

Here's a few pics of my love bug on our sick day walk yesterday afternoon... so sweet.