CAN MOMS BE SICK?

i grew up in a house where i don't ever remember my mom being sick. if she was, she hid it very well. she never stayed in bed. she was usually the first one up when we were young and the last to bed. you could tell when she was tired, but she still kept going. i have heard many woman talk about similar experiences with their mothers and with themselves ultimately that as a mom you just have to keep going.

the last few days i have witnessed first hand that great truth to this lovely story! i must have caught something in oregon or in the air (literally on the airplane). whatever it was it has made me "sick." congested, headache, tired, unmotivated, mostly just tired, and hot and cold and then hot again, then cold again. the last thing i wanted was for the little one to get sick too. you know the drill someone is sick you avoid them so the baby doesn't get sick. well what do you do if it is your own child? one that wants YOU and needs to nurse and wants to be held and held and held and moved from one place to the next and cuddled and rocked and fed again and wants you to look straight at her (without breathing on her) anyway long story short i have been thinking about moms and how throughout history and today moms and dads make sacrifices to care for their children above themselves. i would have loved to lay in bed for hours on end, snuggled in a blanket with tea and read a book, but instead i was up when she was up, cleaning the house, making meals, and playing and "resting" as much as was possible. the man worked and so i continued my same routine with a little more down time. 

when he was home, he was wonderful and helped with her and with meals and served me orange juice and was a great help, but when he wasn't i did what i could with a little help from a few things.

 

modern things really do make it a lot easier to deal with sickness and a baby at the same time. i was imagining pioneers traveling across plains full of snow with newborn babies with low milk supplies because of over exertion and not enough food for even themselves. the worry they must have felt, the helplessness, but the drive that kept them going because they cared more about their babies than themselves. motherhood is a strange thing, the drive it gives you to keep doing what you are doing. the fact that you just got pooped on and you probably will tomorrow and the next day, you are always covered in spit up and it doesn't matter. all of it goes away as soon as that little baby looks straight into your eyes and smiles and you would do anything, ANYTHING! in the world for this little one. so can moms be sick? yeah, but is it different than it was before? of course. can we handle more than we think? absolutely. i'm sure glad i live now though and not in a time or place where the conveniences of life don't exist to aid me tremendously. i sure am grateful for that. i am also grateful for parents that sacrificed countless things for me and still continue to do so and i am in awe of parents that sacrifice even more for their children,whether it be financially, physically, emotionally, mentally or even their own safety to continue parenting their children or even children that are not biologically theirs. today i am grateful that i get to be a parent and that there is such thing as chicken soup in a can or a cup.