Another Version of That Mom

Among many of the things I am generally opposed to as a parent is doing my children’s homework for them. Yes, I am present. I encourage, I instruct, I check Flora’s work. But she does it.

Except for last night when I did Flora’s homework for her.

Before we left for North Carolina, Flora came home with a paper about making a rosary. (Ah, Catholic school.) It was due the Friday that we were going to be out of town.

I forgot about it.

Yesterday, a little politely worded post-it note came home on Flora’s school folder.

“10-24-2011 Flora needs a rosary. This is the third reminder.”

Oh.

Flora: “I was so embarrassed that I had to borrow a rosary from Miss B!”

Oh, dear.

I had no idea they were using the rosary. For the record, this was the first reminder I remember getting, although when I mentioned it to Dan, he said, “Oh, yeah, I forgot to tell you about that.”

Plenty of guilt to go around.

Last night was the usual craziness. Trying to sit down one-on-one with Flora to string beads was a futile mess. She did her math homework. She wrote her vocabulary words on index cards. By the time I got Michael in bed, and we found beads, string, and I figured out how to get the beads on the string (the yarn was too wide for the holes in the beads; stringing the bead involved tying thread to the end of the yarn, and pulling the yarn through the beads that way), it was 8:20. Plus, Kate was hanging over me like a shawl.

I sent the girls to bed. Flora cried. “I’m supposed to help you with the rosary!”

“I know,” I told her. “I know. You did help. We counted out all the beads and you drew the cross. I think it’s more important that you have a rosary to take to school tomorrow than I let you stay up extra late to help.”

Reasoning with a soon-to-be 7-year-old is not very effective. In case you didn’t already know that.

Between making the rosary and various and sundry other PITA activities (trying to cancel a lost debit card, finding a puddle of water under my clothes washer, cleaning the kitchen — which never did get done), it was 11:15 before I went to bed. I’m not proud about having done the rosary for Flora, but other options seemed more unpalatabale to me.

What would you’ve done? More importantly, how do I keep from having to do this type of thing again?

Guilty!

I’m not a big one for mommy guilt, I’m really not. My children are the most important thing in my life (along with DearDR, of course), and I weigh a lot of decisions by the effect it will have on them.

However, I had a knee-jerk reaction today when I thought Monkey had croup, and I feel horrible about it.

I don’t often write about work here, and for good reason (can you say “dooce”?). But, as all WOTHMs know, this work/life-with-children balance transcends challenging at times. Especially those times when you have a sick child (or two).

When I stayed home with Monkey, Bun, and strep in June, I used my sick time allotment at work. I feel lucky to have gotten paid sick time in the first place, but I knew I was pushing it. (I did use a few vacation and personal time hours, too.)

Yesterday, around 3 o’clock in the afternoon, I found out that my husband, who sounded horrible on the phone, and my daughter, who ran a slight fever and complained of a headache, had stayed home from work and day school, respectively.

And my thought process went like this, “Oh, great, if she’s feverish again tomorrow, I’ll probably have to stay home. And I just got an interesting project at work. And the deadline is Friday. Dagnabit!*”

(*All right, that’s not the first word that popped into my head.)

And then I thought, “You heartless mother! This is your daughter we’re talking about.” Bring on the mommy guilt.

When DearDR called this morning to say that Monkey had to go to the doctor, I was even more discouraged. (I go to work very early in the morning, before my kids are awake.) “She’s coughing, and hoarse, and wheezing.” At least she wasn’t feverish any longer; and her headache had gone away.

Someone at the day school had mentioned croup yesterday when I picked up Bun, and that’s what I immediately thought. And then I worried not just about Monkey (and Bun to some extent — hello, contagious sucky viruses), but about what I was going to do about my job and this interesting project I was on.

Does that make me heartless, or only practical?

I was going to trudge up to our HD department (which is just like your HR department, only they say ‘development’ instead of ‘resources’) and talk to someone about FMLA. Yes, seriously. I didn’t want to burn my already scant vacation and personal time on sick-child leave. You can take up to 12 weeks of FMLA time in a year (I think) but you don’t have to take it all at once. Again, practical or selfish?

I did, at least in my head, have a lot of fun staying home with Monkey. We baked oatmeal raisin cookies from scratch (stop laughing). We polished our toenails; we played plenty of games and did arts & crafts. During rest time or TV viewing time, I was going to impose some order on my office. Not a lot — maybe just clearing off the top of my desk.

And then my MIL called and basically told me Monkey had a cold.

The sore throat and wheezing and cough were due to post-nasal drip.

My relief was immediate. I’m so glad Monkey doesn’t have croup. That would have sucked, much more for her than for me.

And I don’t have to miss any more work. Yet. Waiting to see what fall and winter will bring.

Do you think I’m a monster for thinking about work when my kid was sick, and worrying about it? How do you feel when you have to stay home from work with a sick child? Stressed, guilty? Or glad of the break and extra time your baby? Both, neither?