Parenting With A Stomach Bug In 9 Easy Steps

Being under the weather is always tough, but it’s a particular breed of awful when you still have young kids to take care of. Even though all you want is to collapse into a pile of blanket and an HGTV marathon until it’s all over, you still have little people to entertain, keep safe and nurse through their own illnesses because let’s face it, when one family member gets sick, it’s just a matter of time until you’re all out of commission.

Step One- Denial. After dealing with the bodily fluids of your sick child, (who knew something so small had a stomach that could hold so much? ) you meticulously scrub your hands and decide to reward yourself with a well deserved double-fudge brownie before passing out while hate-watching House Hunters. When your stomach starts to protest you tell yourself it’s just because you’re getting to old to eat rich junk right before bedtime.

Step Two- Putting Your Needs First. You’re pulled out of sleep by the sound of your child crying over the monitor. From the noises they’re making it appears they still aren’t feeling well. As you fall out of bed you realize you’re in trouble too, so you wake your partner to put them on kid duty. Meanwhile you stumble to the bathroom and hope this will be a false alarm.

Step Three- Doing unspeakable things to your poor toilet. You knew going into being a parent that kids get sick a lot, but you never made the connection that you’d get their germs as well. When you’re hugging cold porcelain at 3 am this feels like a glaring oversight.

Step Four- Optimism. There’s no possible way you could puke anymore. You check on the kids, who are sleeping again thanks to Tylenol, and then pass out until the morning.

Step Five- This feels familiar. You find yourself dry-heaving into the commode before your eyes are fully open. This is eerily reminiscent of your first trimester. You know that because the kids are sick you most definitely have the same bug and aren’t pregnant, but you take an old pregnancy test that was stashed in the back of the linen closet, just in case. When it comes back negative, like you knew it would, you regret wasting it.

Step Six- Feeding the troops. You want nothing more than to throw some Pop-Tarts at everyone and crawl back into bed, but you know if you do you will all pay for it later. You manage to make toast and tea for everyone without passing out and mentally give yourself a parenting gold star.

Step Seven- Protein spill in the kitchen. You’re not even done with your breakfast when your youngest starts yacking. Clearly giving in to his demands for strawberry jam was a very poor decision. You clean up the best you can without adding to the mess yourself.

Step Eight- Let’s play a game. You spend the day trying to convince your kids to join you in activities that involve little to no movement and let you lay down on the floor as much as possible. If you thought you’d all fit, you’d set up with some blankets and a DVD directly in the bathroom to make things easier.

Step Nine- Preventative measures. When your energy finally returns the next day you swipe down every stationary object you can reach with Clorox wipes and vow to give any person who coughs nearby a wide berth. You know deep down this won’t prevent the plague from striking your family again, but you tell yourself otherwise.

(Image: 9nong/Shutterstock.com)