sick days

There are serious discrepancies between men's and women's sick days. I have Ebola today. I haven't had that confirmed by an actual physician, but I figure that as a mother I have a certain right to make diagnoses of weirdo illnesses that plague this household.

I decided this morning to take a day off from my chores. Firstly? I didn't hop on my treadmill this morning, despite deciding at the beginning of the week that the slacking was over. In my defense, this particular strain of Ebola hits hardest in the morning. I could barely whisper, much less make any actual human sounds. My nose was plugged solid with that stuff that mutated the ninja turtles, and when I finally had to get up and have a coughing fit I did it in the bathroom because the stuff I was coughing up was making me wretch. I won't even mention the eye goop and headache.

Aren't you glad you tuned into this blog this morning?

Right, sick day. I didn't get on the treadmill. Then I got up and had a shower, without wetting or washing my hair (anybody want to hang out?). My day was off to a nice comfy start right? Especially since Steven was kind enough to put on a kettle for me before leaving so I could make some tea.

This has been my day off since then:

• Chase all the kids back to the bedrooms to get dressed. Help certain kids get dressed.
• Serve breakfast. Hear them argue about who got what spoon (you wouldn't think this would be an issue).
• Clean up breakfast.
• Make lunches for Jordan and Steven (he sleeps in and goes to work without one. I feel sorry for him).
• Try to round up kids and send them to the front door to put on jackets and shoes. This is made more challenging with not being able to yell.
• Help half of the little heathens into their shoes when they refuse/cannot do it themselves.
• (sort of) Yell at kids to stop playing in the yard and get int he van already.
• Take boys to nursery school and Jordan to her school.
• Come home.
• Drink more tea.
• Try and relax on couch while Elliot climbs all over me, being sure to batter me with her knees, elbows and other assorted bony bits.
• Field phone calls with a forced voice.
• Change shitty diaper.
• Stuff wriggling screeching child back into her clothes.
• Get lonely child ready again and leave the house to pick up boys.
• Hang out in the nursery school parking lot forever because one of the boys is still in time out inside. The other boy's time out had been earlier and wasn't an issue at pick up time.
• Come home.
• Make grilled cheese sandwiches and zoodles.
• Feed children.
• Wipe children
• Clean off table.
• Do first load of dishes (how there are so many dishes by noon when there were none when we got up is beyond me).
• Make meatballs and sweet and sour sauce for supper.
• Clean counter and assemble dinner in slow cooker.
• Finish the dishes - this is another two rounds, since I have to stop halfway through to dry them so I can fit more into the dish drying rack.
• Put baby to bed.
• Send boys back downstairs with all the noisy toys they found to be sure to wake up the baby.
• Let Mitchell stay up from nap, hopeful that he'll keep Tennyson entertained so I can relax on the couch and maybe work on my novel.

If Steven had a sick day, it would look like this:

• Moan and groan about being so so sick.
• Lay in bed until the kids finally caught on that Daddy was home and went and crawled in with him. This would likely be around 9 or 9:30.
• Get up, stretch, sit on the side of the bed for a minute.
• Pick up magazine and head into the en suite.
• Sit there for 30 minutes reading.
• Wander out into the kitchen in lounging pants and/or housecoat.
• Make giant bowl of cornflakes topped with exorbitant amounts of brown sugar. Maybe make tea.
• Sit at the table with corn flakes and laptop and read dorky news websites for the next hour.
• Lay on couch and watch cartoons with the boys (if they're not in school or diaper gym), or alone if nobody is home.
• Doze off.
• Wait for Tiffany to make and serve lunch.
• Eat lunch at the table.
• Back to the couch.

Doesn't it sound heavenly? Yep. Sure does.