I think I am a pretty good mum.
My kids beg to differ. Especially when they are sick.
I have a very low tolerance for sickness. You will get a bit of sympathy, maybe a hug, but if it drags on longer than a couple hours I am over it. Totally.
I am all ‘What? Go to bed or something. Get out of my face. And for God’s sake don’t breathe on me! I don’t want your germs.’
Meh. I will give them medication and stuff. Throw a couple of cloves of garlic in their general direction. Maybe a bucket.
I just don’t do sickness well. The nurse maid thing bores me.
And then there are the secretions. And the projectileness. From every orifice.
*shudder*
Too has been sick for the last couple of weeks. Has had the last 3 days off school, waking around 4pm all confused and cracking my shit up with her ‘What day is it!’ and ‘Is it morning or night?’ and ‘Where are my *insert some freaking weird random fever induced item*!’
And wanting her Mummy. Awwww. Just don’t breathe on me. Good thing she is like a head taller than me so I can avoid making contact with the germ factory that is her general head like location.
A few years ago, Moo was pulling the ol’ ‘I am too sick to go to school’ thing and I was all ‘You will catch that freaking train or I will drive you to school. In a leotard. And heels.’
This went on for months weeks. She was a right bitch (hormones and genetics) and I was rather relieved that she was coming home and going straight to bed.
Yeah, shuttup.
Finally, after screaming match after screaming match I took her to the doctor. Well first I threatened her with going to the doctor. The ‘I will take you to the doctor and if there is nothing wrong with you I will rip you a new arse and then fart on your pillow’ threat. I told her she would have to have blood tests and shit.
She was all ‘OK’.
And I was all WTF?
Turns out she had Glandular Fever antibodies. Meaning she had Glandular Fever. And was getting better.
So I was sending her to school with one of the most debilitating viruses you can get. Something that can send the strongest of people to their sick bed for weeks, if not months.
Yeah. Shuttup.
So she thought she had something up her sleeve. A ‘bad mummy’ card to pull whenever she liked.
She underestimated me.
Now when she complains of being sick I just tell her to suck it up. Cause she functioned with undiagnosed Glandular Fever, she can cope with anything.
And for fucks sake don’t breathe on me.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Thankyou everyone for your kind words about my Grandfather. He is being discharged from hospital today – no beds – fuckers – but hopefully they will be able to find a local place soon. Yes, I know what the place is, I just don’t want to think about he ‘h’ word right now. Smootches to all of you… unless you have a cold.
{ 48 comments }
Achooooooooooooooooo!
Not.
I hate it when the hubby is sick, because he is a total baby.
My mom used to tell us that if we weren’t bleeding or barfing green goo that we had to go to school. I probably infected a dozen people a year with my constant strep throat infections! LOL
You cruel heartless mother, you!!!!
Must admit I don’t do sickness well myself. Get over it you weakling is my thought process basically.
Except when I’m sick – then I expect maximum sympathy.
My kids are too little to be annoying when sick. But forget it when my friggin husband is sick. You would think the world was coming to an end. I make him sleep on the couch on top of an old blanket just so the germs won’t sink into the couch. And he’s not allowed to sleep on the part of the couch that I like to sit on!
Hope the Too feels better soon and the lurgy totally passes you by.
Evil mutha! I’ve had Glandular fever, and was prostrate for weeks. Still, whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right. (wtf?)
Smootches from a distance. *cough hack sneeze*
I totally can’t do sick well, either. I get all anti-mommy. But Isobel only wants me, to sleep on me and be coddled by me, when she’s sick. Ugh.
That card you’re holding is a golden one. And hugs, you know?
Okay so my oldest who is almost six has THE WORST breath when she is sick. It can clear a room. I am always like “don’t breathe on me you have cold breath!” Glad I am not alone.
well done dear!!
basically, if they are not actually dying… and I can tell
they go to school
toughens them up
you are doing the right thing
Just come by your blog and I am scared – you sound like my mother when I was sick. “You’ll get over it but just don’t breath on me!” I love the visual imagery of the concern for the child but the worry that you might get the ailment yourself. One of the reasons I don’t have kids…….as a teacher I feel that I can tell a kid NOT to breath on me! Thank you for the brutal honesty about motherhood – I thought my mum was on her own!
You and my mother are soul mates. She sent me to school while I had mono and didn’t think anything was wrong until I physically couldn’t get out of bed a week or so later.
Oh crap, she reads this….
Hi Mom!!
Sick people shit me. I like to avoid them.
I so should learn to flip burgers, methinks.
If Too keeps bleating, Ratsak in small doses will not be detected. Just a thought.
when my oldest had chicken pox, all he wanted to do was sit in my lap and hug me.
yes, he shared. chicken pox at 34 was not pretty.
tell too and moo to suck it up. sharing is not always a good thing.
oh… and when i was in college, i worked an entire summer at a day camp with glandular fever.
undiagnosed.
around little children.
yay me!
Oh Thank You Kelley!
I’ve just had Miss 5 home for a week with some mystery stomach pain virus and I also don’t cope well with the whining and general ickipoosickness. “Yes darling here’s some buscopan and nurofen … now go to bed … and here’s a bucket if you need it”.
So glad that I’m not the only mean mummy in the world. I’m just not good at the sympathetic nursemaid act.
They are all going to find something to use the ‘bad mummy’ card for! I have a low threshold for others illness myself. When I’m sick I want to be alone, if they are really sick – they should too!
My mom would always send me to school as a kid, whether I was ill or not. So now, when she’s ill, I just leave her to it. Or make her Lemsips without enough sugar.
She trained me well.
*cough cough*
Oh wait, I’m only stuffed up because of hayfever. I suppose you can’t catch that.
My son M had glandular fever when he was six. We thought he had tonsillitis like his sister K but 10 days later she was well and he was sicker, so we headed to the Royal Melbourne where he was blood tested and found to have glandular fever. He hadn’t been able to eat much so had been losing weight, we could easily count the poor kids ribs from across the room. I’d always thought it was something older kids and adults got.
Oh the irony, I actually do have the startings of a bit of an iffy throat right now…
probably caught it here too…
Last time my ex-husband was sick, he kept calling me to ask that I pick up our children. I gleefully ignored the man-baby for hours … until I was informed that the ambulance was coming for him because his appendix had burst.
Now we’re even.
I’m not sick but *burp* oh, thanks, that’s better and where’s the pillow *pfffft* oh, now that felt goooood. Now, let me go find somebody to sneeze on …..
You know, in some ways our lives are very different, but in others they’re totally the same. Jordan’s been sick with the flu (the real flu) for a week and the others are showing signs….
I nurture them at long distance.
“go to bed or go to school ………… those are your options….. what? you aren’t sick enough to stay in bed? rightio then off to school with you!”
And no, unless you are dying, don’t even think about snuggling in my bed.
Unless he has asthma. Cos the poor kid can’t help that.
Hi, my name is O’Neal, and I am guilty of not believing my children’s complaining. I have sent Blue to school with an array of contagious cooties and all but cussed the school nurse out when she would call for him to be picked up. The worst 2 things I have missed were a broken leg and an inguinal hernia. The meanest Mom in the world tried to make poor 2 yr old blue “walk it off” for 32 hours before taking him in to the ER to get a thigh to toe cast.(AFTER we scalped our football tickets)
At 5 yrs of age he went 6 months(probably more) with a ruptured hernia. I finally caved after seeing him in the buff screaming in pain, and his testicle swollen the size of a grapefruit.Emergency Surgery – yay!
Wow, that felt great! Thank you for giving me the courage to finally get that off my chest. And be judged by the entire free world.
PS – Don’t get me started about available beds in the hospital. The right insurance can buy a cure for almost anything. Thank God we have that insurance!
I can totally relate to the sick kid germ thing. This morning, my daughter coughed on my breakfast. She flat out turned and looked straight at my food and coughed. eww, gross! I had to throw out the rest of my breakfast, there was no way I was taking another bite of that food.
I’m a terrible nurse too. Not so much to the kid, but the husband? Forget it.
Ha. I thought that only happens to me. Sending sick kids off to school.
I like to come here. It makes me feel normal.
*cough cough*
Now get off your ass and work.
This was a terrific post. I submitted it to Five Star Friday.
I always feel SO BAD when they are sick. Poor babies.
But I still don’t want your body fluids on me. The end.
What the hell is “Glandular Fever” ???? OK, I just googled it and it is “Infectious mononucleosis” Here we call it “mono.” I had it in 1st grade, hospitalized, and spewed snot from all orifices. It was great.
If she is taller than you, that means he spittle is gonna get you as it waifs down. Run woman, run!
FYI, I hate people messing with me when I am sick, so it drives me nuts when my hubby is all in my face and wanting sympathy when he is sick. I DON’T CARE what color your snot is or how high your fever is!!
I never get sick. The whole over-active immune system and all, y’know. So you can kiss me when-evah.
Oh sure, just post whenever you feel like it. As if its your blog or something. Take a few days off, we don’t mind! Then post us some sickness why don’t you! It won’t matter to me, I’m already sick, what’s an illness going to do to me! ha ha ha
Oh, you’re starring in my meme movie for tomorrow’s post. I feel so, so sorry to be you!!
OMG!!! I’m like that too! And mine are little!
Now I don’t feel like such a shitty mom. Or, at least I can take comfort in the fact that I’m not the only shitty one.
Hey, I sent my daughter to school with a double ear infection once. It happens. When I was a kid, I didn’t get to stay home unless I was vomiting and running a fever or coughing up globs of mucus.
I’m assuming Glandular Fever is what we call Mono. I’ve had Mono twice; you’re not supposed to get it more than once, so I guess I’m just an overachiever.
Sicker than a fucking dog. And now, I learn from my acupuncturist, I probably never got over the first bout 16 years ago. Well. That may explain the fucking exhaustion!!! My poor boys. I kept blaming them. 
Eh, they’re to blame for most of it. LOL!
Oh my GOD! Poor thing! She’s pretty tough I guess. Like her mum.
Confess I swing the other way.. If they say they hurt they do. Helps that they are fantastically awful liars
I hated having to decide if my kids were sick enough to go to school. Until I made the rule – if you stay home, you stay in bed and NO internets or XBox for 24 hours …..
But I did let them take one mental health day off each school term.
You
Crack
me
the
fuck
up!!
I always got the old “if you’re not puking or bleeding, you’re going to school”, both of which are hard to fake and even harder to do without a lot of personal duress and sacrifice.
Glad to hear your cheeky gramps is out of the hospital.
I’m gonna start saying “for fucks sake” all the time now because I’m just a poor, Aussie wannabe. Oh, and I never like it when my husband breathes on me. EVER.
I won’t breath on you if you don’t breath on me.
Much love dude.
Yes! Someone else on the planet exists that does not do the whole “sickness” thing.
I’m ok with the common headcold, and maybe even the flu – to an extent. But if there is vomit or arse explosions….GET OUT!
I’m serious. I DO NOT do vomit or other nasty bodily secretions. Calling me a severe emetophobe is an understatement of epic proportions.
And FFS, if you can’t make it to the bathroom, you had better be dead because I am NOT cleaning it up!
Yeah, I’ve done the not believing too. Only to have to go pick up a vomiting kid from school. I’m old school like that. You’re sick? Prove it with puke.
Right on Kelley
you don’t want to raise them to be soft woosy girls. Harden the fuck up Australia starts at home.
agog and aghast, foolishly left your blog open on my puter and wandered off. My youngun chanced upon it, and now reads you too.
Not fair, this is mine! And daughter if you are reading this, FINISH YOUR HOMEWORK.
Having been nurse maid to a chronic fatigue suffering post glandular fever 11 – 13 year old for the last two years – I know what you mean!
It took me 12 months to get used to the idea that suddenly I was not alone in the house, had no time to myself etc etc…a million doctors appointments and so on….
I wonder when the hell someone is going to come up with a vaccination for this shit?
Since this I have been pretty lenient with sick days, not that my eldest has had many – but still…
Also there was the time my mum sent me to school with meningitis – I think I’m still mentally scarred from that – tried to tell her I was sick – but no, she wouldn’t listen!!!
G
xx
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