Sick-at-home mom: What to do when you're unwell?

As I write this, I'm barely recovering from a wild GI bug that had me knocked FLAT OUT. For the last 24 hours, joint pain and vomiting and fatigue changed me from the Run-at-hom mom to the Sick-at-home mom. When this happened when I was a career mom, I'd send my son to daycare, my husband to work and stay in bed all day. Up until yesterday, I hadn't had more than a cold bother me. I'd forgotten how much it sucked to be a sick parent.

Luckily for Gillian, Isaac and Mr. P, they'd all had their colds and stomach bugs earlier in the week (I had my fingers crossed I'd get through the germs unscathed), so I was I able to tend to them. But this also meant that all three other Pinarskis' were healthy and active and pestered me relentlessly for drinks, food, shows, toys, pants and books. Finally I gave up, plugged my laptop into an outlet in my bedroom and found a few kid-friendly YouTube channels, washed several pints of berries and set out cheese and crackers and passed out. Before yesterday, I hadn't been too keen on five-year-old Isaac navigating YouTube on his own — I'm now thankful he had the good sense to click on episode after episode of Franklin and Little Bear for his sister. 

And that's what my kids have been doing for the last day — eating cold cereal, snack foods and watching more TV than they ever have. I'm extra thankful that Mr. P has a work-from-home job to make sure that I wasn't laying in a pool of my own puke and that the kids weren't swallowing Lego. The fallout of this SAHM being sick is that 24 hours of free-rein and TV have made my kids a little, um, bratty, and my house is totally upside down and filthy. The TV detox isn't pleasant.

I wasn't about to ask my friends to take in my kids (in case their own get sick) and with another business trip coming up, Mr. P couldn't take a day off. So what do other SAHM's do?

Photo by Kirikri via Flickr