Gratefulness comes at strange times...

I've been sick all week. Actually sort of sick for two weeks. All last week I had a sore throat but the true cold didn't kick in until Sunday. Sunday I felt bad. Monday was worse. I took cold medicine and had McDonald's for dinner, it was that bad. Yesterday was better than Monday today better than yesterday. But sick all week.  Fever, sore throat, stuffy nose, headache, exhausted, short tempered, blah and really lucky.

Yes, lucky. This morning as I was getting up to take Brent to work he noticed the hesitation and said, "you can stay in bed, you're sick." Which is what I've done the past two days. Monday I started to get up and then went right back to bed, yesterday I didn't even pretend to get up. Today I was planning on it, the car needed gas, I need to run to Target and the grocery store, but none of those things HAD to be done today. Well, except for the gas part and Brent will take care of that. And that's why I am lucky. I could just go back to bed. I slept in all week. I took naps. I watched cheesy daytime TV and I read an historical novel about Washington crossing the Delaware that was really excellent. And I didn't do anything else.

This is a new luxury in my life I've had over the past couple of years and it's amazing. See we don't do this very often when we are sick. Actually stop and be sick. When you have kids you can't. You don't stop being a parent just because you have a cold so you soldier on, most of the time taking care of a little one who is also sick, or who just got over being sick so they have tons of energy while you feel like poo. When Brent and I were first married before we had C I had jobs where taking a lot of sick time was out of the question. You got a day, with a doctor's note. And even then it usually wasn't worth it. So you medicated and went to the office. Which means every one there is doing the same thing so all year long you are sharing germs. Someone is always sick, getting over being sick or starting to get sick.  And then there were the years where I did both, worked outside the house and had C. So a day at work, sick, then home to take care of everything that needed taken care of here, sick. Because you had to save your sick days for when the kid was sick because you couldn't send them to school.

So yeah, I am lucky. I know that I am. And I am grateful. Sometimes you just need to feel like crap to realized how great you have it.