rest – I Have To Say

Parenting encompasses a lot. Sometimes there are moments I think about that I want to document, but they’re super specific to me. So I’m introducing a new type of posting: parenting diaries. This will come and go. It’s not meant to be consistent.

So for my first entry, let me just say seeing your child sick is hard. My daughter is two now. And all the times I’ve been sick or my household has gotten sick in 2022, my baby wasn’t too bad. She maybe had one day of sleeping but her temperament was the same, She was just coughing or sneezing more.

This time, she got sick, like sick, sick.

She was coughing and had a runny nose. She slept a lot. She barely spoke and wanted to be held all day. She was lethargic, out of it, and breathing out of her mouth, with a temperature, not high enough to take her to the hospital according to google, but definitely higher than her normal.

In the middle of the night, she had trouble sleeping, staying asleep for thirty minutes or so at a time, because she was so congested. She cried when we would suck the mucus out of her nose. She cried when we forced her take take medicine. She wouldn’t eat. She was weak from the lack of nutrients. It was truly heartbreaking.

Seeing her sick was hard. Even though two year olds are young, they have personality and it was clear she wasn’t feeling well because she wasn’t acting like herself. It sucks when you know there’s nothing you can do to make them feel better.

We tried medicine, which at some point she just spit out. We used the steam from a hot shower, had the humidifier around her 24/7, used nasal spray, and gave her ice chips and pedialyte. Crushed ice she liked; the pedialyte she spit out. Recovery takes rest and time. It took three days for the temperature to go away. She’s still congested, even though it’s been about a week now. And now I’m sick.

Luckily she’s improving, but it was emotionally tough. We can only do what we can do though. Hopefully, she won’t be sick again for a while.

Why is it hard to rest? Why is it hard for me to just sit still? I’ve been sick with covid for the past week and still feel some of its effects. Covid has exacerbated my auto immune disease by increasing the amount of inflammation in my body. Still, while feeling pain and weak and coughing up my lungs, I felt like I was doing something wrong by lying in bed. I didn’t allow myself to fully rest. I tricked myself into thinking I recovered, only to be drained by going into work prematurely. This led me to take today off to recover once again.

Is it the mom guilt? Is it my resistance to ask for help? I was quarantined to my room and I had to lean on my support system to take care of my daughter and me. I still do because I haven’t fully recovered from either sickness. Is it the need to feel productive? Society is quick to call people lazy before hearing their story. Plus, I’m in bed thinking of all the things I could be doing if I felt differently. Stuck worrying and anxious instead of embracing the time I get to myself which is rarity now that I am a mom.

It makes me think of what my life coach asked me in a different context. What would you tell your friend if they were in your situation? I would obviously tell them to rest. To give themselves some grace and allow their body to recover. So, why have I been treating myself, someone I love, differently? Why are we harder on ourselves? Why are our expectations higher? Why do we force ourselves to prove how strong and capable we are, when we could just not?

I could push through the fatigue and the pain and do the chores I’ve been putting off or do some work. However, in doing that I’m not allowing myself to rest and that prolongs the recovery process. On top of that, when we spend the time we could be resting worried about this, that, and the third, we aren’t truly resting because our mind is going. That takes energy. That is draining, especially if you’re running on caffeine and vibes. If you are in survival mode.

I, we, are deserving of rest without guilt. We are deserving of grace. Especially in this time amongst inflation, the rapid spread of diseases, and social and political unrest. Please note, that you don’t have to be feeling unwell or exhausted to be deserving of rest. By then, the rest is probably overdue.

I need to make a conscious effort to set aside time for myself to truly rest without worries and distractions. Do you?