How to Cope With Sick Kids

It seems like a good time to address the cold and flu season.

The kids are sick and soon you will be too. And if history repeats itself, so will Dad. The good news is the dog won’t get it; but the whole house will go under quarantine and no one will want to visit. Your family life will go on hiatus.

The first cold and flu season as a new mother is part of the initiation into motherhood.  It’s one of the many tales you share with other moms at the park or around a baby shower cake. The Mom who has the most detailed account of her kid throwing up in the supermarket checkout line will be an instant celebrity to the rookies in the group.

Future cold and flu seasons are not any easier, you’re just wiser and the kids are more experienced. They will be older and perhaps have the motor skills to negotiate the path to the toilet or the workings of the barf bag. Your shirt will not be a tissue anymore, and they will be able to blow their own nose. Though, you will eventually miss being on a first name basis with the nurses at the pediatrician’s office and part of the office birthday card list.




You have to smile when you picture the doctor’s offices this time of year. This is a place where they have inside knowledge of the latest virus. They can tell you which virus your little one has and which one to look forward to. The well child side of the waiting room is empty. The sick child side is full of parents with kids on their laps looking weary and hopeful a new virus won’t be coming home along with their prescription.

Identifying another mom with sick kids is easy, just look around. She’s the one with her own fever at the grocery store buying crackers and drinks for everyone else. She’s up at 4am changing soiled sheets and checking the humidifier. Her hand is a thermometer and her arms an instant dose of medicine. An alarm clock couldn’t wake her, but a cough from the nursery can. She could be the crying lump on the floor begging for mercy from the virus God.

It is time to fly the white flag and surrender that this too shall pass.

 

About Tracy 144 Articles
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