You've probably seen those cute NyQuil commercial; the ones that show a miserable woman walking into a room to presumably tell her boss that she needs to take a sick day. The big reveal: the boss is a toddler wearing an adorable princess-meets-superhero getup. The message: tough luck, mom; take a pill and suck it up. "Moms don't take sick days," the commercial says, and as most moms know, it's basically true. No matter how terrible we feel, we're most likely still doing the school runs, making the meals, doing the laundry, and changing the diapers. Sick days are a thing of our pre-child pasts . . . but should they be?
This Fall and Winter, I've had a tough go of it. Multiple flu strains, sinus infections, and miserable colds have found their way into my house, and I've been their number one target (my two young kids have, thankfully, been mostly unscathed). I've been sick so much that my husband suggested I needed immunity testing, and when I scoffed at that, reminding him that I'm constantly surrounded by germ incubators, he decided that maybe motherhood in general was leaving me too exhausted to fight off bugs. A good theory, but ultimately unhelpful when I'm hacking into my kids' morning bowls of Cheerios.
Every time it's the same. I'll feel something coming on, ignore it for a few days and continue my usual mommy routine (maybe adding a few extra glasses of wine to my diet because alcohol kills germs, right?), and then, suddenly, I'm knocked down for the count for a day or three. While all this illness has been frustrating, for me and definitely for my oh-so-dependant family, it has taught me a few things, namely about how important it is to take the time to get my body back on track and how to make that happen, despite having a toddler, a preschooler, and, let's admit it, a husband whose worlds don't really run smoothly unless I'm totally present to run them. Here are my tips for taking a sick day (or two) when you're a mom.