Sick days? I know not what you speak of...

I come up from the basement this morning after working out and instead of finding H filling his travel mug, ready to head out for the day, I was met with silence. I crept up the stairs, lest I wake the offspring, and found him, still burrowed beneath the covers of our bed, fast asleep. Nudging him gently I ask, “Are you going to work today?” “Ugh, doh”, he responds, “I’b doo sick.” Apparently he has been struck down by the cold I was suffering from earlier this week. The difference? He actually called in sick to work, while I live at work.

H spent the morning sleeping (until ten thirty for Christ’s sake), while I ran around getting #1 off to school and taking the other two to buy a new jogging stroller. What did I do the two days I was ill? The same damn thing I did today, just substitute stroller shopping with taking them to the park. Yes, one of the perks of being a stay at home mom is that you never, unless you are on death’s door, get a sick day. And even in that circumstance, there is no simple phone call to be made. There are car pools to be rearranged, saintly in-laws to be called into service, or when every other possibility has been unsuccessfully explored short of pulling some stranger in off the street, spouses cajoled into staying home with much disgruntled tut-tut-ing. And once you have secured yourself some childcare, don’t think you are collapsing into bed for some much needed, uninterrupted rest, you are still responsible for packing everyone’s shit to go to grandma’s or your, apparently, temporarily retarded spouse will come in every ten minutes to ask where the extra diapers are or what #1 eats for lunch even though she’s eaten nothing but peanut butter since she was three.

This must be the reason God made women mothers, since apparently, only our gender have the strength, and patience, to deal with illness in such an environment. I was climbing ladders chasing Little Man at the park Monday, while surreptitiously blowing my nose. H is lying prostrate in front of CNBC*. Even the severity with which we feel thee illnesses, and pain in general is less than that of the fathers of our broods. I felt a little congested, H feels like “his head is going to explode”. Perhaps we have some genetically enhanced pain threshold. As I have mentioned before, if the day H and I got our tattoos is any indication, we do. I sat in the chair first and afterward told him not to worry, it felt like a burning bee sting, and after all, the tattoo was only about half an inch square. Well, he came out like he had been water-boarded for an hour followed by some shock therapy. “You are out of your mind.”, he told me. “That hurt like a mother!” Well, no not really. It didn’t hurt this mother too much at all.

So as my reward for working when I am sick I am taking advantage of the warm body sitting in my house and have sneaked out to get my roots done while the baby naps, figuring, even in his state, H can listen to the monitor and call me when Little Man wakes up. That is, if the phone isn’t too heavy for him in his illness ravaged state. If I can’t get a sick day, then at least I will have good hair.

*To be fair, he did entertain LM while I prepped dinner, allowing him to crawl all over his prone body on the couch.