Avoid losing your sanity when your kid has a stomach bug.

Week four and we are in back-to-school sickness hell. I’m not sure why the puke fairy decided to pay us a visit.  After all, we’ve already seen her sisters;  the chicken pox fairy and the ragweed fairy since school started.  I’ve had one week of normal life. The rest of my time has been spent with boogers, sneezes, vomit and diarrhea. It’s clear that this has driven me over the edge since I think it’s completely socially acceptable to write about this.

To add insult to injury, it is impossible for a child to EVER puke in the toilet. They will puke on the bed, they will puke on your carpet, on your couch cushions, but never ever will they puke into the wastebasket or toilet. Today this reduced me to tears, especially since I am running out of paper towels. Wasn’t it just last year I was elbow deep in this mess? So let’s really make this fun. Let it snow a lot this winter so we can have snow days, pull out the chocolate chip cookie dough, and add on another ten pounds.

Even though your sanity can be at risk when your sweet one is sick, there are steps you can take to make it just a little bit better.

1. Call your village. The first thing I did was to call one of my close friends to cry about vomit and my paper towel shortage. Supportive texts, paper towels and flowers from her garden appeared in my garage. Strength gained.
2. Clean your house. Make your child comfortable and then bleach and disinfect your house. One of the maddening things about your child being sick is your inability to control the situation. Cleaning up the germs in an effort to prevent the rapid spread and misery of other family members is a great second step.
3. Encourage your child to sleep. Sleep cures and gives you some downtime. I gave my son one of our sleep masks and he went out like a light.
4. Go on Facebook and complain. See number 1.
5. Open your windows if it’s warm enough. I don’t know about you, but visualizing germs flying out of my house makes me feel better.
6. Decide not to cook. You don’t need another thing on your plate.  Besides, all they want is toast.
7. Sit with your child and watch a movie or just talk to them. Turn this into a positive. Before you know it your momma kisses and hugs will no longer be welcome.
8. Drink lots of water and eat….just in case you’re next.
9. Be optimistic. My mantra today is “well at least we’ll get this over with.”
10. Practice gratitude. Today I have reminded myself that we live in the age of modern medicine and vaccinations. If I have to clean a little vomit and that’s the extent of my worries, well then, I am blessed.

We are all heading into the fall and winter season. This will get worse before it gets better. Take care of yourself mommas and prepare for battle!

Oh…and buy some cleaning supplies.