Stay-at -Home-Mom For a Day

It's been a LONG time since I've been a stay-at-home mom. I much preferred it to the working world. Some people prefer it the other way around. Me, no. I was born to be a stay-at-home mom. Since I divorced Ex, though, the only way I have the opportunity to stay home during the week is if my office is closed on a holiday (though not 7/4) or if one of the kids is sick - not if I'm sick, you know the mom rule of sick hours, we use them all for our kids but when we're sick, we go to work and get everyone else sick cuz we've used up all of our hours for our kids.

Long story short, I left work in the early afternoon because SmallBoy was sick. PC didn't work til later in the afternoon, so he picked him up at school when the call came in,

"Mrs. MommyGuilt, we have your SmallBoy here in the office and he's wheezing, coughing, and has some major congestion."

I wanted to drop everything and come home from work right then and there, but I knew that PC could handle it until he had to leave for work - he's such a good daddy. So at 1:00 I came home and we traded. We hung out on the couch and watched Star Wars, then decided we both really wanted to sleep since we had been up a lot the night before with the cough. It was decided that my bed was the best place to partake of our snooze. We popped in a disc of West Wing, I slimed him up with menthol rub, snuggled in, and he was soon asleep for a a short nap.

SmallBoy felt a little better after his snooze, but it was a deceitful kind of better, as we all know the witching hour for fevers and yuckiness to return is between 4:30 and 6pm. He slowed down, but ate his dinner. I thought that perhaps we were going to work our way out of this - the wheezing had stopped, the coughing had slowed significantly, especially since we finally found the inhaler, and there was no temperature in sight. I let him hang out and play on the computer for a while, since he'd been very good with staying away from it during the day. He made his lunch and was in bed 10minutes before bedtime. Cool! Success! We're all going to work/school again!

...at least that's what I thought until about 20minutes after I crawled into bed. I had gotten the call from PC that he was off of work and on his way home. I was so tired from the night before that I just couldn't wait up for him. I did my bedtime routine, put in another disc of West Wing and hunkered in for the night, sharing the bed only with the Obnoxiously Cute Furballs (OCFs). Within minutes my eyes were closed, and somewhere in the state of consciousness between deep sleep and awake, I could hear the voices of Jed Bartlett (Martin Sheen) & Josh Lyman (Bradley Whitford - HUGE Cure Autism Now supporter, btw). My contentedness was harshly interrupted by a sound that I knew did not belong in my little sleepyland - the hacking and wheezing of one Not-So-SmallBoy. Inhaler, menthol, back rub, nose blowing, back to sleep and me back to bed. Twenty minutes later, as I approached the entrance way to my West Wing sleepyland, the sound echoed in my ears once again. This routine continued for 2hours at 20minute intervals...take care of cough, snuggle back to bed, start to doze, cough cough cough.

Thankfully there was another 2hr time period that he slept, but then about 2 or 2:30, it started again. We stayed home today. He needed the rest. PC is off today. I could have (read "should have") gone to work, but I'm really damn tired myself and about 2 days behind SmallBoy in the chain of the sickness - and my band plays on Saturday night...talk about timing, plus, my stomach's all messed up from all of the extra iron the doc is giving me. So, I stayed home.

I had the privilege of taking the kids to school today. I take LargeBoy everyday, but that's 45minutes before he has to be there so that I can get to work on time. Girl and SmallBoy ride with PC. I let PC sleep this morning...he's been working so hard, and I was up anyway, so what the hell, right? It was kind of fun. The hustle and bustle of everyone trying to be where the needed to be, the fight for the perfect parking place (it felt a little like the scene in Mr. Mom - "North to drop off, South to pick up.").

I pulled back up to the house, turned to lock the car and saw Girl's viola still in the back seat. She had called shotgun when I took her and her brother to school, and she put the viola in the back. Obviously, she had forgotten. I toyed, only momentarily, about teaching her a lesson in responsibility, and then the I-miss-being-a-stay-at-home-mom instinct kicked in. School officially started in 5 minutes. I could make it! Back into the car and then off I raced (no more than 25mph in a school zone, though) and got to the school just in time. As I walked into the office, they said to me,

"Oh, Girl was JUST in here calling you."

With that, she walked past and all was well. I was met with a bright and truly thankful,

"Thank you, Mommy!" (I love when my almost 14 y/o calls me 'mommy', makes me forget that she's almost 14).

She has auditions for her music festival coming up and every lesson now is a must.

Now I'm stuck with the dilemma: I'm already up, but I'm really freaking tired from no sleep last night. Everyone else is sleeping still. Should I do the mom thing and start cleaning and doing laundry or should I give in to my body to avoid getting sick and GO TO SLEEP? Sleep sounds good, but I'm not sure I can do that after 2 cups of coffee. Oh well, we'll see! Nope, decision made. My Not-So-SmallBoy is up. I'm up. We'll hang out together. I'll make bacon and eggs - oh, no eggs....oh well. Maybe we'll bake again today! GOD I wish I could stay at home again. Too bad stay at home mothers don't get paid, they would command THE single highest salaries! To SAHMs EVERYWHERE!! CHEERS!