You may have noticed that the Baby Bunching (or Mommy, for that matter) job description does not include sick leave. Yes, it really, really sucks when your Bunch gets sick. But it sucks even more when you, as the CEO and Mastermind of All Things Family-Related get sick or otherwise incapacitated. Even my husband, who is quite likely the most hands-on-dad I know, noted that "when mom's not working, the family doesn't work".
So what's a Baby Buncher to do when she's down for the count?
Sometimes you're lucky enough to have time to come up with Plans A, B, AND C, as I was when I was scheduled to have surgery last week. The surgery had the potential to have several different outcomes, each with varying recovery lengths and all of which included not lifting the youngest of my Bunch for a couple of weeks. With no family in town, my husband decided to take the week of the surgery off and we scheduled our babysitter to watch the kids the day of the surgery. At the end of his week's "vacation," my parents would come in from Texas to assist with Recovery, Phase II while hubby headed back to work. Sounds like a great plan, right?
It was - until my babysitter had a death in the family that placed her squarely out of town on the day of my surgery. And round-the-clock supervision of my crew was no job for a novice sitter - we needed someone with staying power.
For obvious reasons, three boys ages five and under are a lot to spring on anyone that isn't either A) related to one of you by blood or B) on your payroll. I mean, really, you can only ask your friends to do so much. There's no way I would ask a girlfriend to help me out and risk infecting her household if I had the flu, but I wouldn't hesitate to ask my own sister to hold my hair back while I puked. There's just something different about it.
Fortunately for me, my very good mommy friends didn't see it that way. Sensing my panic, one girlfriend took charge and scheduled a full 24 hours worth of child care coverage for my children. The elaborate plan involved shifts involving 3 primary caregivers with a few assistants at select points of the day, multiple transporters, and even a "night nurse". Damned if they didn't work the whole thing out so that my kids were able to stick to their routines without missing a beat and even spend the night in their own beds. And then they arranged to have dinners delivered all week. Now that's a good group of friends. I love you, girls!
As a Baby Buncher, you may have noticed that virtually every person in your life "wonders how you do it"-- managing two children under the age of two. Those same people are probably not lining up outside your door, chomping at the bit to get a whirl of what it's like to be you for a day. No, being you takes practice and patience and stamina and not everyone is up to the challenge.
So what about when you don't have time to come up with a plan or (worse!) you come down with something contagious? It's actually a timely question - it couldn't hurt us all to do a little pre-flu season disaster planning. How does your family manage your Bunch when mom is down and out?
We have major problems with this. I had my first glimpse into this dilemma when my husband and I bought had the stomach bug when my kids were 8 weeks and 18 months! We were down for 2 days and it sucked!
Since then I have been questioned by 2 doctors when I go in for my second, third, etc. appt for a sore throat about why I can't get someone to help me out. Really? They haven't come to volunteer to babysit.
We have a new policy in our house with sickness since me being out of comission doesn't work for more than a few days. I get sick. I get a full day to rest. The past two times I've had a cold I take one weekend day to lay in bed and do nothing. It seems just resting cures many, many things. Sure enough one day of him parenting full time cuts down on my time out of comission.
Posted by: Linda | Aug 30, 2009 at 02:40 PM
We are very fortunate that my husband's company offers him 20 days (per child) of backup daycare. So, he can bring the kids there for the day and I can rest. It works well for "mental health days" too! Now, if we only had a solution for when the kids and I are all sick at the same time (like a couple of weeks ago)...
Posted by: Holly | Aug 30, 2009 at 02:53 PM