Bad Mom

After her bath last night, Olivia declared that her arms ached. She said she was cold and asked for extra towels as she huddled in front of the space heater while I sweated my way around her gathering stuff to comb and braid her hair and get her into her jammies before she turned into an icicle. She then hovered over the toilet for a few minutes thinking she might puke.

Yes, she’s sick again.

Does it make me a bad parent that my first thought wasn’t my child’s comfort and worry for her health but more like, “How is this going to affect my sleep tonight?”

I’m so tired of sickness around here. And I know! I know it’s only been a few weeks. We’re so lucky that we don’t live with chronic illness. We’re so lucky that we’re all relatively healthy and that this is just a blip and next week, we’ll probably all be well and happy again. Yet, I dreaded going to sleep last night because I was so afraid that I was going to be woken up every hour or so with some request or another.

And look at that, all that worry was for nothing. She slept great (after a dose of acetaminophen) and didn’t wake up once in the night. I, on the other hand, woke myself up coughing on several occasions.

Sigh, if it’s not her, it’s me and that’s almost as frustrating. Yep, mother of the year right here. I’m moving things around to make room for my trophy.