30 Things That Happen When a Parent Gets Sick

Every parent has been there. You know, that dark and awful place called being sick, but with kids. A common cold morphs from nuisance to diabolical plot to kill your last ounce of give-a-damns. Without fail, your common cold will arrive at the most inconvenient time, like when your preschooler decides that he can start making his own lunch. By himself. With a knife.

Meanwhile, you’re trapped on the couch, wondering how much of your self-respect you are willing to overlook based on how far out of reach the tissue box is. But it doesn’t stop there, because when a parent gets sick it means that you will likely experience these 30 things:

1) You won’t shower for three days.

2) You will wipe your nose on your shirt at least once.

3) Your kids will suddenly be very loud.

4) Like blow out your aching eardrums loud.

5) You will run out of DayQuil and eye up the NyQuil instead.

6) Your kids will want to watch cartoons all day.

7) And you kind of do too.

8) After three hours you formulate serious questions for The Man In The Yellow Hat.

9) You will not want to eat but your kids will.

10) You decide everyone can live on peanut butter and bread.

11) Except you’re out of peanut butter. So you actually have to cook something.

12) Shit.

13) Your throat will start burning, making yelling or talking impossible.

14) That’s when one hellion will convince the other hellion to go fishing in the toilet.

15) You spend 20 minutes disinfecting the bathroom.

16) You forgot you were making lunch.

17) The macaroni has turned into a boiled sludge. Start over.

18) Your husband calls to say he’ll be an hour late tonight.

19) You get angry and Google things like “can I go to jail for spiking my husband’s dinner with laxatives?”

20) You run out of tissues. And juice.

21) After piling the kids in the car, you head to the grocery store for tissues and juice.

22) $87 later you schlep your kids and bags back into the house.

23) You realize that you left the house wearing the shirt you wiped your nose on.

24) You call your mom and get a voicemail. Leave a plea for help.

25) Suddenly it occurs to you that no one has had lunch.

26) Hmm…it is close enough to dinnertime. Order a pizza.

27) Turn PBS back on and get the kids psyched for a pillow fort on the floor.

28) Curl up on the couch with a box of popsicles and no more give-a-damns.

29) Pizza arrives!

30) Two hours later the house is trashed, the kids are passed out on the floor, and you eat the very last slice of cold pizza as your husband walks through the front door.

After you put the house back together, you pull on the frumpiest yoga pants you own, crawl into bed, and lull yourself to sleep with visions of bulk cold and flu syrup while lounging in a quiet B&B far, far away.

Related post: 7 Murphy’s Laws When Your Kid is Sick