Preparing for sickness: How to help your family when you can’t get out of bed

Image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici and  http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/

 

No one likes being sick.  It feels terrible, you can’t do anything- ha! as if you felt like it, and as a mother, you can’t take care of your family.

As I was laying in bed sick this past week, it got me thinking, I wonder what could be done ahead of time to help my family while I’m down and out?

Here are a few things I came up with:

1. Keep things cleaned and picked up.  The day before I got sick, I knew that my chances of staying well were slim. I also knew how fast my boys could destroy a house without careful watch.  I made sure that I cleaned up the kitchen and ran the dishes through the dishwasher.  I also was keeping a close eye on the boys bathroom.  This way, I wouldn’t feel the added stress of an out-of-control house while being sick.  This isn’t a fool proof plan-  obviously you can’t always tell when your coming down with something.  Also, my kids made plenty of messes with the ridiculous amount of toys they own.  Nonetheless, it was still nice to have a clean sink:)

2. Teach your kids age appropriate meals that they can make on their own.  Both my boys can fix there own cereal, toast, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and a couple other things.   They can also work (with some supervision)  the microwave.  I say with supervision because once my four year old made the house stink because he heated a muffin way to long and it burned!

3.  Have dinner in the freezer.  When I woke up and knew that I was sick, and that my husband was still sick my first thoughts were about how my boys would fend for themselves in the kitchen. As stated above I knew they would be fine for breakfast and lunch, but kids tend to want to eat dinner too- go figure! (ha!)  Thankfully my sweet mother-in-law was able to bring us some dinner.  But, just in case, I think that an already made meal can come in handy. Check out this post if you need a few more reasons why freezer cooking is a good idea.

4. Prepare stuff beside your bed.  I could tell that I may be coming down with something the night before.  So, I grabbed my kindle, it’s charger, a water bottle and my phone.  This way if I didn’t feel good enough to get out of bed I could still read and have the water I needed.

5.  Have a few education resources ready.  We didn’t have school the day that I was sick. Yet,  I was able to have my son complete some math and phonics worksheets.  Had I thought of it,  I could have had him watch some educational videos.  I wish that I had put together some pre-printed work-pages for him to do on his own too.  I’d also like to note some educational websites that he would be able to navigate on his own.  Any recommendations?

One last thing that I wanted to mention is that when my family gets a stomach bug, I tend to take some activated charcoal, just in case.  Activated charcoal has been said to help you…ahem… excrete the poisons (or virus) from your body.  (I guess I should have some sort-of disclaimer here that says you shouldn’t take anything without talking to your doctor first.  Activated charcoal can effect the use of other medications. I’m in no way trying to tell you what you should take, only sharing what works for me).  My point is, anything that you know helps your body’s immune system is helpful to start taking before you are sick.  By the way, I believe that due to the charcoal (and of course the hand of the Lord), my sickness time was cut into a third of what my husbands was.

I’m probably missing something, so if you think of it, please share in the comments below!