A Reason for Stay-At-Home Moms to Get Sick Days
There are many illnesses a person without daycare can "work" through out of sheer necessity--one's spouse only gets so many sick days, after all, and he'll probably need them himself to take a day or two off to recover every time he gets a tummy bug on a weekend that you got to enjoy Thursday night while nursing a baby or while he was off on a business trip. But just as there are valid reasons for taking time off work when ill (not spreading germs to others, being too feverish to think, unable to take the train while having diarrhea, etc), there is a reason why moms should not be left to tend to children when they have a simple cold.
Sense of smell, it turns out, is pretty crucial to this particular line of work.
This morning I dropped of G at camp at 9 and headed right for Verona Park--it was just a few miles up the road from the camp, has a decent playground, and a lake with a mile-long walking path I could use to get in some exercise while killing the time till Toys R Us opened at 10. We had some birthday gifts and such to get, and I saw little point in going home where I'd probably get K settled in for a morning nap and end up heading out just before lunch or cutting into the precious minutes of Tim's nap. We had a lovely time at the playground, though my intentions of letting Tim run off some steam before sitting in a stroller or sitting in a car seat or sitting in a shopping cart were slightly undone by Tim's desire to sit in a toddler swing...for twenty-plus minutes. Did you know that between 9 and 10 am both the toddler and older-kids sections of the playground are shaded at Verona Park, but the swings are still in full sun? The only reason Tim got out of that swing after twenty minutes was because I couldn't hear his protests anymore through my fried brains. I nursed K while he took a few turns down the slide, we walked our mile with Tim declaring his love for every "PUPPY!" we saw along the way, we got in the car and went to TRU, we got our gifts and got out quickly because K was starting to fuss, and then we headed home.
Once there, I had the simultaneous demands of K wanting to nurse/sleep, Tim wanting to eat, and me needing to pee. Going roughly in reverse order I took care of those issues, giving Tim a yogurt which for some reason he took to the bench by the kitchen window instead of to the table, standing by the bench while using it as a table for his yogurt. When I got up to change K, he asked for a yogurt shake, and since we were out of more yogurt I gave him one. I then went to settle K down for a nap, which she did not settle for, when I heard Tim thump and cry. I returned to the kitchen to find him slipping and sliding in spilled yogurt shake (and now that I thought about it, what IS the benefit to making yogurt for kids easier to spill, huh?) and with less sympathy than I would have had if he hadn't spilled yesterday's shake as well, I plopped him on the steps and mopped up the bench and floor and then his feet, and then stripped off his yogurt-soaked shirt and pants. It was after I'd thrown the pants over by the basement door and gone to throw out the paper towels and returned to the scene with the intention of wiping the yogurt off Tim and putting him to bed that I noticed the brown streak on the floor where the pants had slid to a stop...and the brown smudges around Tim's feet...and the brown smears down both legs. It was at this moment that Tim helpfully put his hand to his hip and took it away all brown and informed me, "Mommy, oh, look, I poopy."
No wonder the kid didn't want to sit at the table to eat! Up to the bathroom, where I could change him on a floor that can be bleached before rinsing him in the tub--one rear end, one back, one tummy, two legs, two hips, two floors, four hands and half a box of wipes full of poop by the time we were done, and the dried-on nature of the stuff around the perimeter indicated that this had clearly been here a while. That's why it got so all over--plenty of time for Tim's movements to spread the fragrant stuff all over without Mom having any idea what kind of mess was developing in his pants due to her failing nose....Though I'm SURE folks at Toys R Us knew!
When I can smell, no dirty diaper goes unchanged for long, and even a breast-fed infant poop can be detected across a large room even with AC or fans going, I'm that good. Without my nose, I'm lost, handicapped, unable to perform one of the four vital duties of a mother--keep them alive, keep them fed, keep them in clean diapers, and keep sacred the Nap Time.
Not even vomiting or fever can mess me up as much as a stuffed nose. Jake, I can't work the rest of the day...At least until G comes home and HIS nose can tell me when Tim needs changing.
Sense of smell, it turns out, is pretty crucial to this particular line of work.
This morning I dropped of G at camp at 9 and headed right for Verona Park--it was just a few miles up the road from the camp, has a decent playground, and a lake with a mile-long walking path I could use to get in some exercise while killing the time till Toys R Us opened at 10. We had some birthday gifts and such to get, and I saw little point in going home where I'd probably get K settled in for a morning nap and end up heading out just before lunch or cutting into the precious minutes of Tim's nap. We had a lovely time at the playground, though my intentions of letting Tim run off some steam before sitting in a stroller or sitting in a car seat or sitting in a shopping cart were slightly undone by Tim's desire to sit in a toddler swing...for twenty-plus minutes. Did you know that between 9 and 10 am both the toddler and older-kids sections of the playground are shaded at Verona Park, but the swings are still in full sun? The only reason Tim got out of that swing after twenty minutes was because I couldn't hear his protests anymore through my fried brains. I nursed K while he took a few turns down the slide, we walked our mile with Tim declaring his love for every "PUPPY!" we saw along the way, we got in the car and went to TRU, we got our gifts and got out quickly because K was starting to fuss, and then we headed home.
Once there, I had the simultaneous demands of K wanting to nurse/sleep, Tim wanting to eat, and me needing to pee. Going roughly in reverse order I took care of those issues, giving Tim a yogurt which for some reason he took to the bench by the kitchen window instead of to the table, standing by the bench while using it as a table for his yogurt. When I got up to change K, he asked for a yogurt shake, and since we were out of more yogurt I gave him one. I then went to settle K down for a nap, which she did not settle for, when I heard Tim thump and cry. I returned to the kitchen to find him slipping and sliding in spilled yogurt shake (and now that I thought about it, what IS the benefit to making yogurt for kids easier to spill, huh?) and with less sympathy than I would have had if he hadn't spilled yesterday's shake as well, I plopped him on the steps and mopped up the bench and floor and then his feet, and then stripped off his yogurt-soaked shirt and pants. It was after I'd thrown the pants over by the basement door and gone to throw out the paper towels and returned to the scene with the intention of wiping the yogurt off Tim and putting him to bed that I noticed the brown streak on the floor where the pants had slid to a stop...and the brown smudges around Tim's feet...and the brown smears down both legs. It was at this moment that Tim helpfully put his hand to his hip and took it away all brown and informed me, "Mommy, oh, look, I poopy."
No wonder the kid didn't want to sit at the table to eat! Up to the bathroom, where I could change him on a floor that can be bleached before rinsing him in the tub--one rear end, one back, one tummy, two legs, two hips, two floors, four hands and half a box of wipes full of poop by the time we were done, and the dried-on nature of the stuff around the perimeter indicated that this had clearly been here a while. That's why it got so all over--plenty of time for Tim's movements to spread the fragrant stuff all over without Mom having any idea what kind of mess was developing in his pants due to her failing nose....Though I'm SURE folks at Toys R Us knew!
When I can smell, no dirty diaper goes unchanged for long, and even a breast-fed infant poop can be detected across a large room even with AC or fans going, I'm that good. Without my nose, I'm lost, handicapped, unable to perform one of the four vital duties of a mother--keep them alive, keep them fed, keep them in clean diapers, and keep sacred the Nap Time.
Not even vomiting or fever can mess me up as much as a stuffed nose. Jake, I can't work the rest of the day...At least until G comes home and HIS nose can tell me when Tim needs changing.
posted by Sue Freivald at
3:02 PM
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