I drove to work last week and ended up sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic that on any other day would be humming along at a steady pace.  But on this morning, a car had stalled in the middle of the road, and the result was a massive backup.

Sometimes that’s how I feel when someone in my house gets sick.  The entire flow in my household is interrupted.  It’s hard enough to get dinner on the table and chores done when everyone in the house is healthy.  Throw a sick family member into the mix and it really throws a wrench in the plans!

My mommy friends and I often joke, “The only thing worse than a sick child is a sick MOM!”  Of course, it’s horrible when your child gets sick.  No one likes seeing their child struggle with tireless coughs and raw noses chapped from constant blowing, but though it’s heartbreaking, at least the household still runs: meals still get cooked, laundry still gets done, the house still gets cleaned (admittedly between doling out cherry-flavored medicine and sympathetic hugs.)

When I’m sick in bed, I feel angst just thinking about the hamper in the other room filling up with dirty laundry, the dishes piling up in the sink, the potluck dish I promised to bring that will now become whatever canned food I can find in my pantry…

Now I’m not so egotistical to think that no one else (like my dear husband) can run the home better than me, but he travels a lot for his job. So for me, it’s not the sniffles that make me fear the flu, but the fact I can’t properly care for my family.

So that’s probably why I try to keep my family “tuned up” with hand-washing and my home with disinfecting.  I can never guarantee that traffic won’t ever slow in my household, but I try to do what I can to keep it from screeching to a halt!

What’s the worst part about being sick for you?