Mother's Sick Day....Yeah Right

This morning I woke up feeling quite queasy and began thinking about what I did when I was feeling sick and my children were very young. I couldn’t close my bedroom door and leave them to fend for themselves and I didn’t want them to be hovering around while I was getting sick. Mothers don’t seem to be able to take the day off, even when they are spending it hugging the toilet. What do you do with the children when you are sick? Best option would be to swap times with a friend who has children of similar age. This works really well whether it is that you are sick or just in need of a mental health day. If this option is not possible, a little pre-planning will go a long way to speeding up your recovery. I had a box in my closet with some fun activities that the children could do that didn’t require my constant attention. Learn from my mistake, there shouldn’t be any Play dough or paint in this box. Things that I included were: a DVD of a favorite movie (keeping it in the box will ensure that they have not seen it in awhile), a set of washable markers for each child and a stack of paper, etch-a-sketch, and some toys that have been hidden away so they haven’t played with them in a while.
Another idea that I used when I was experiencing “all day” sickness during my second pregnancy, was to have my husband prepare lunch for my son, including pouring the drink, and placing it all on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator. Since even looking at a picture of food sent me running for the bathroom, my two and a half year old son would open the refrigerator and pull out his lunch. Make sure that the plate is not breakable. My favorite things to use were those really sturdy plastic plates because then he could clean up to.