Hello everyone! Thank you for your patience on this week’s blog post. This week, a cold has ravaged our home and it really does solidify that teamwork is a necessity. This week, while the kids were sick, they mostly wanted to be comforted by me–which was incredibly difficult when I was feeling sick as well. But when T and I had to take shifts throughout the night and the next day holding H, and taking care of O… It was comforting to have my teammate to lean on during the hard moments. During the moments when we were both utterly exhausted. When we both only had 3 hours of solid sleep for two nights in a row. During the much needed coffee run–MULTIPLE coffee runs. Parenthood is hard. It’s hard when we’re both stretched thin and exhausted. Thankfully, T is home on pat-leave, so he and I taking shifts sleeping was much more feasible. Although, you better believe if he wasn’t on pat-leave, I still would have yanked his butt out of bed to take a shift lol.
Illnesses are hard. No one likes being sick, but it is especially hard when you AND your child(ren) are sick. Here are some things that help us manage:
Letting go of routines – I have been working on waking up before 6am every day, but while sick and while the kids have been sick, I let this slide. It’s important to let my body rest and recover. We haven’t taken our dog for long walks, just short bouts of outside time for fresh air. I haven’t studied, written, or used much brain power. I’ve watched movies with O and T, I’ve read my spicy book, and I’ve relaxed. I’ve skipped workouts and exercises, choosing to rest and listen to my body.
We don’t follow the BRAT diet – there can sometimes be a lot of pressure on getting the kids to eat while sick, but something that works for us is we don’t follow the BRAT diet. We let the kids eat whatever they are willing to eat–warranted they aren’t vomiting. If they are then we stay away from dairy. But while O was sick, he wanted sweet food. Of course he did. We told him eating growing food would help make him feel better, but if he wanted to have sweet food with his dinner, he could have some. Really, anything to get him to eat. He also wanted to drink apple juice. Sure. As long as he was taking in liquids. On another note, T and I will drink broth regularly, and make soup for the kids with electrolytes, garlic, and onion.
Chores and cleaning fall to the wayside – we don’t put pressure on ourselves to keep up with chores. No, we aren’t leaving piles of dishes in the sink all week, but maybe we aren’t vacuuming every day or maybe we skip dusting this week.
We give medicine/tylenol even if the kids don’t have a fever – anyone who knows me knows I’m kind of crunchy/granola. I try not to give or take medications unnecessarily. We try to heal using foods and rest. But if the kids seem off/sick (even if they don’t have a fever) we give them medicine. The kids can’t always verbalize if they have a headache or their body hurts, so we use our intuition based on their behavior.
We listened to the advice of professionals – H had a fever for two days, barely ate/drank, and was swatting at his ear. We called an advice nurse and took him in for an appointment. We didn’t need to, but just to be cautious. We got advice from our doctor and have been following it.
These are just some things that we do while sick and struggling through. Something T has said throughout this week is, “This won’t last forever,” but I know in the hard moments, it feels like it will. I also understand why people only have one or two kids lol O was NEVER like this while sick, H is a completely different beast. As always, listen to the advice of professionals, but I hope some insight on our lives helps–even just a bit.