My kids were sick all school holidays. My man is sick right now. My Badoo was sick on Monday. I’m sick of them being sick.
When they’re sick I’m supposed to care for them. I have to drop everything I’ve planned in my tightly planned day and care for them. Doing this replaces any sympathy I have for them with frustration and seething resentment. “Why did you have to go and get sick in such a busy week?” I may or may not have said to my man-flu riddled husband while bringing him his third glass of water and second dose of painkillers this morning.
Either that or I set them up with a big bottle of water and a bucket and ignore them while I go about my day. This definitely makes me feel sympathy for them and lots and lots of guilt that I’m not doing anything about it. “That poor man with the awful unsympathetic wife,” I think, taping away at my computer. “He deserves so much better,” I think, putting a load of washing on. “I can’t believe how mean I am to sick people,” I sigh, dashing out the door to a meeting.
I want to be nicer, I really, really do… but people getting sick on my watch just tips my ‘things to do’ list over the edge of madness. That is to say, it makes me mad. I try very hard not to show this madness, but I don’t do very good job of it (see above).
I try to make up for it when they are better and back in their own routine by doing and saying nice things about them being well. A little chocolate to celebrate the return to happy tummies. A big smoochy kiss to say “yay, you’re not contagious anymore”. Fresh sheets on the bed to turn over a new leaf.
Sigh. I’m just no good at sick people. I even try to ignore my own illnesses… oh, wait a minute, that’s a mum-mandatory, isn’t it? No time for mum to get sick, rally we must, chip chip outta bed and off we go on the morning school run.
Hmmm… Maybe there’s a reason I don’t have a lot of time for sick people after all. Jealousy always was a curse.
Do you think I might be psychopathic?