Pre-kid sick day
Snuggle up in bed with a book. Sip and nibble whatever you can keep down. Sleep whenever you feel tired. Take the occasional trip to the bathroom to vomit.
Post-kid sick day
Vomit into toilet. Wash hands thoroughly. Pick up baby who wants to breastfeed.
Baby vomits all over your front.
Hold baby at arms length so she’s not steeping in her own vomit while trying to remove her clothes and yours so you can shower.
Shower baby and hand her off to husband. Rinse yourself the rest of the way off and dress.
Grab baby back because, of course, she still wants to breastfeed.
Baby vomits on you again.
…
When it’s clear that the entire family is down for the count and you’ve already cleaned vomit off the floor in three rooms of the house, sweep everything out of the living room and roll up the rug.
Lay down vinyl covered toddler matresses and settle in to sleep between two preschoolers.
Wake up to one or the other child whimpering. Hold them in your lap while holding a bucket under their mouth to catch vomit.
Clean it all up, rearrange the children in the bed so you can attempt to lie between them, drop off to sleep.
Half an hour later, awaken to … a child whimpering for mama, a baby crying to breastfeed, or a baby crying for a bottle.
…
Once the family has been vomit-free for 12 hours, get out the bleach and bleach every surface in the house, including the twenty dozen toys that were on the floor when the vomit started to fly.
…
Spend next several days changing children’s clothes when their diarrhea diapers blow out, worrying that you should be bleaching everything again, and thanking God that your diarrhea phase is miraculously not urgent.
Get sleep in half-hour segments for next several nights, as the seven-month-olds are switching off waking you up and the foster baby is NOT happy with Daniel giving her a bottle.
…
Your husband goes back to work Monday morning.
You turn on worship music , decide that laughing is better than crying, and write a blog post.