when mom gets sick

We have all heard the joke "who takes care of mom when mom gets sick". Everyone chuckles and nods in understanding at this quip. We all have seen the commercials with the mom in her bathrobe, hair a mess, nose red and the HOUSE a WRECK! A few seconds later she takes (insert product here) and she is miraculously better and the kids are smiling and the house is pretty again.

YEAH! I wish.... They fail to mention a few things; a lot of these products just put you to sleep...which is really what you need when you are sick anyway...but I don't know of any SAHM able to sleep the day away while their children roam the house unattended. Plus, I have an infant that nurses.... and if he is anything like his brother anything above a regular Tylenol (taken by me) will result in vomiting every feeding until the medicine is out of my system.... great plan, huh? And sometimes there really isn't anything you can take that makes you feel 100%. Nothing cures a head cold or the flu.... just time and rest. Two things SAHM DON'T have...

And yesterday, while I lay in bed with my head throbbing and my body going from furnace to tundra I realized no one was going to walk through the door at 5:00pm to relieve me. There were diapers to change and food to prepare dogs to let out and melt downs to prevent and I was IT.

I know I am not the only one. There are single mothers everywhere, widows, mothers who's husbands travel for a living or drive trucks... there are countless numbers of military moms who's husbands are gone for year tours over Iraq or Korea. So I realize I am not the only one who suffers this. But then I got to thinking... what a LOUSY system. I can't believe there is no back up plan. The idea that a woman could be totally alone without any help or assistance. I can't believe that this is the way it is intended to be. I guess it might be different for someone who lives in the same town as the rest of their family. But nowadays who does? Even non-military people live in separate states from their parents, siblings, cousins etc.... We live isolated from anyone who does not share our address. We go it alone. Segregating everything to avoid the perception that we need help. Its ingranied into our culture, into the fabric of our society. Moms go it alone.

I know a mother of four who's husband is deployed right now. She goes it alone. Sometimes on walks I catch her coming and going from her house to her minivan with the kids or grocery's or sports paraphernalia... just makes me sad and angry all at once.

I just can't believe there isn't a backup plan....and I can't believe I got ANOTHER head cold!