Making Time For Me: 1 Important Thing

I made time for myself in a lot of ways this week, as per usual.  Though, I am going to focus on just one!

Last Friday afternoon after I left work, my stomach started turning.  I was sick last Sunday. Then my son James on Tuesday, my daughter Jordan on Wednesday, then their stepmom on Wednesday.  I knew exactly what the rumbling meant, I was about to be sick.

Well some time around 3pm, I ran to the bathroom and that was the beginning of that.  I had to go pick up the kids from school, the whole time just breathing in the fresh air, telling myself that I could hold it together long enough to grab all my kids.

I stood outside their classroom and waited for them.  When Jordan came out, she could tell something was wrong.  I told her that I was sick, we waited for James and we high-tailed it to the car.  Then swung by the day care to pick up Noah and headed home.  I cried the whole time I was in the car.

We made it home, I unlocked the door, pushed the kids aside, ran up the stairs and into the bathroom.  My body knew the EXACT moment that I could reach the bathroom.

While I was standing outside the school waiting for my daughter, I text my co-workers to tell them that I wasn’t feeling well.  Just to give them a heads up, as Saturday was my one Saturday a month to work.  We had a training all set up for 100 participants.  Luckily, on this particular Saturday we had 4 of us scheduled to be there.

I was supposed to provide one of the 2 hour trainings, but I also was the one that had the code to get us into the building.  Well one of my co-workers and friends messaged me write back and said “honestly, even if you do feel better, you should stay home, don’t want to risk spreading the germs or you getting worse.”  She was right.

Even if by some miracle I had felt 100% by 7am Saturday morning, I didn’t want to run myself down or spread those terrible germs to my co-workers and the participants.  I text my boss to let her know, then had some communication with our “pseudo” boss for while my boss is out.  Everyone agreed that us changing the plan was the right thing to do and I should stay home on Saturday.

I crawled into bed about 415pm on Friday and slept.  Well, I rested between running to the bathroom.  It was so bad, I had a trash can by the side of my bed.  I also drank some soda, which I haven’t had much of since the beginning of the year.  But, Vernors was the only thing that sounded good.

The kids took care of each other and just let me rest.  When Paul got home, I told him that I would get up to make them dinner, LOL!!!  He said, “um, no you aren’t making us dinner, plus we don’t want you breathing on our food.”  I told him that there were a bunch of boy things in the freezer, hot pockets, pizza rolls, etc!  Things that I don’t make for dinner and he said “sounds like we are having a bunch of frozen/fried food for dinner.”  My boys were in heaven!!

Saturday morning I laid in bed until nearly 1pm.  I was texting my friend to see how work was going.  See, still feeling guilty because that is what I do.  It has NOTHING to do with the fact that I don’t think they can handle it, but everything to do with the fact that if something were to go wrong, I would blame myself.

Well….turns out they were fine with out me.  Go figure!  I knew that they would be.  They all text me and told me to feel better, they said “don’t worry, we got this.”

I took time for me this weekend, by laying in bed!!!!  I slept longer than I ever sleep.  I ignored the voices of the kids, their snipping and whining at each other.  I didn’t make dinner or breakfast for my family.  I just shut myself in my room to give myself some time to recover.

How often as Mom’s do we work through the pain of being sick?  Stand up and move on as if everything is fine?  I mean, men get a cold and they lay down and act like they are on the verge of death and we as woman can be practically giving birth in the kitchen and will be making a 5 course meal.  We feel guilty for shutting down when so many people need us.

Well, not this weekend I didn’t.  Not for nearly 24 hours, I didn’t.  I shut down, I laid down, I closed my eyes and ignored the calls to motherhood!!!  I made time for me!