On-the-Job Hazards

Every job has it's hazards and the one a mom of little ones faces is contracting the stomach flu from her kids.

I was just thinking the other day, Isn't it nice that we made it through this whole season without anybody throwing u- Oh, never mind.

I wish I could say that I'm full of sympathy and compassion for the particular child whose vomit I'm cleaning up, but really I find that it's more a feeling of dread, because I know that no matter how careful I am, it is quite likely that I will be hovering over a toilet soon myself.

Is there anything worse than the stomach flu?

I mean, yes, of course there are worse things, but really, when you are in that moment of shivering on the bathroom floor in misery and you can hear your kids running wild in the other room doing God only knows what, and you are thinking you should go check to make sure there are no sharp objects involved, but it takes all the energy you have just to blink... well, it's hard to imagine worse things.

Yesterday I found myself in just such a situation. Beyond the door I could hear my 5-year-old attempting to put my 2-year-old in time out. From the sound of things, it didn't appear to be going very well.

My 7-year-old was "in charge" and preparing a snack for her brothers.

"Whoa, that's a whole lot of chocolate chips!" I could hear Caleb saying.

I tried to care, but I was too busy counting the minutes until my husband could come home and take care of all of us and thinking profound thoughts like, "When was the last time I cleaned these baseboards?" and "God, kill me now."

Yes, I know I'm overly-dramatic, but next time you get the stomach flu feel free to tell me all about how you kept it all in perspective and found the strength to pull through. As for me, I think I'm going to try to milk it for another day...