Dear stay at home mummy, I salute you – Mummascribbles

Dear stay at home mummy*, I salute you. (*note this also goes to working from home mums too!)

I am a full time working mummy who last week had a poorly three year old struck down with the flu. The childcare that I have in place means that for a lot of his bugs I don’t need to stay with him, for he is at my mum’s who cares for him in just the way I do (and he adores her). Also if he’s only got a cold, I still send him into nursery if it’s one of those days. Please don’t think that I don’t want to be with him, I want that more than anything. Only I have to weigh up his level of poorliness against whether I can get away with taking a day off work. Thankfully there have only been a couple of occassions where I have needed to make that decision, it’s not often that he has anything more than a sniffle. Last week however was different.

Stay at home mum, if that had of been you, you would have been pinned to the sofa with your snuggly cuddly munchkin wondering when you were going to get your next cup of tea. You’d have been timing the doses of calpol like clockwork, dealing with the cries of a temperature ridden toddler, trying to get food down them that they aren’t interested in eating and water down them that they just don’t want to drink. You would have been counting down the hours until your husband came home to take some of the relief away and you would have found peace when they were doing the bedtime (unless of course your little one decided they only wanted mummy in which case you would still be hard at work). 

Me? I was sitting at my desk, drinking hot tea, eating a nice lunch and awaiting regular updates from my mum on the health of my son. Emotionally, it is horrible knowing that your little one isn’t well and that you can’t really be there with them but I totally understand that as a working mum, I do get the added benefits of tea and lunch.

Stay at home mum, this week I have been ill with the same flu that Zach had last week. I have now discovered the reason that Zach was completely wiped out last week – flu is exhausting. For me though, because I am a working mum, I still have that support network in place even if I’m not at work. My mum still expects him to arrive three days a week and nursery still expect him the other two. This week, all I have had to do is drop him off and even that was a taxing task when I have felt so dreadful. The rest of the time? I have had the luxury of wallowing in self pity, having a snooze on the sofa and watching a ton of daytime tv.

I have felt like absolute crap. I have been sick through the amount of snot that I have been producing. I have had the hot and cold sweats. I have got through more packets of tissues that I ever thought was possible to get through in four days. But I have been alone. And in fact on Wednesday, because Mum comes over our way to take him to music class, I kept him home with me for a couple of hours in the morning until she arrived. And it was so hard. I felt like crap, my head was pounding and I tried so hard to be alert for him but I was useless and it was a complete relief when mum did arrive. 

Stay at home mum, if I was you, I would have had to suffer whilst still being mum. I would have had to watch hours of Peppa Pig instead of This Morning and Loose Women (don’t knock me…I never ever get to watch these as I’m always at work!). I would have had to make him breakfast and lunch and dinner each day when the thought of food made me feel ill. I would have had to entertain him at least a little bit rather than laying on the sofa all day dozing in and out of sleep. I would have had to make sure his bottom was wiped and that his poo was finished when I was wretching on the amount of snot that was blocked at the top of my nose/throat. I would have had to put up with any tantrums and explosions of toys all over the floor whilst trying to deal with my pounding headache. But I haven’t had to do any of that. When I’m ill, nothing changes. When you are ill, you are superwoman. Honestly you are. Because this week, there hasn’t been a moment where I have felt like I could have looked after Zach single handedly. But if I was you, I’d have just had to get on with it.

And that, stay at home mum, is why I salute you. I salute you for all of the hours you put into looking after your little one’s when you yourself feel like crap. And I’m not talking just about flu. It could be anything. You coud have a headache. You could be having a really painful period. You could just be feeling absolutely mentally drained. But you are awesome. And I just wanted to take this time (while I’m laying on the sofa still feeling pretty crap whilst my child is playing away at nursery), to high five you. A big massive high five.

I still hope to be you one day. Or at least partially you. And I hope that I can learn to deal with being a mum whilst being ill. Because I know it’s not an easy task. Now please, go scrape your child off of you, pop the kettle on and have a cheeky slice of cake. You totally deserve it and it’s really want I want to do…only I can’t really taste anything right now!

Lots of love from the full time working, flu ridden mum!