When you’re a stay at home mom, you don’t get sick days.  I knew, when I started staying home with my kids, that this was one of the benefits of a “regular” job that I’d miss the most.  When I’m sick, I only want to curl up on the couch, watch mindless tv and drink ginger ale until I feel better.  Not a lot of opportunities to do that in my current occupation.

Working when you’re sick is more or less difficult depending on the job — it was hard to teach dance lessons well with even a cold, but I could write software with the flu (although for the sake of my coworkers, I tried to do it from home).  Being a stay at home mom is an intense job — the hardest I’ve ever had.  You can only slack off so far — you absolutely have to on your game.  You can’t really take a break, even when you’re sick.  Nothing changes.  Diapers still need to be changed, kids still need to be fed, messes need to be cleaned up, stories need to be read, cuddles need to be given out, and you have to do the dozens of things you do all day to keep your children from causing themselves (or each other, or the dog) serious harm.  There’s very little margin for adjustment.  (In fact, it can actually be harder — any attempt to give yourself a break will probably get the kids off their schedules, which can make things tougher.)

I am sick today.  My day was pretty much exactly the same as always, except we didn’t go out to explore at all, and we watched more tv than usual.  (And, all the tv we watched was all in English.)  I kept things as simple as possible all day, but it was still pretty much business as usual.  Benjamin was bouncing off the walls because he didn’t get out at all, and Liam was fussy all day (I’m hoping he’s not getting sick, too).  I had Dan pick up dinner on the way home, and after dinner, I got to lay down for half an hour.

Here’s hoping I feel better by morning.