The Part of Motherhood No One Tells You About

​When I was a kid daydreaming about becoming a mom one day, I pictured a lot of things. I pictured the laughs, the milestones, the holidays, and the adventures. You know what I never thought about? What happens when everyone gets sick.

​Today, I am officially rolling into Day Three of high fevers.

​It started with Hazie. Her temperature has been a total rollercoaster—ranging anywhere from 99 all the way up to 104. With medicine, it finally breaks and drops back down to a normal 97.6 or 98.7. And every single time, just when I breathe a sigh of relief and think we are in the clear, it creeps right back up again. It is exhausting, and honestly, so frustrating.

​To top it off, today was supposed to be the field trip of the year for our homeschool program. I had been looking forward to it for so long. Of course, we had to miss it. Instead of dwelling on the disappointment, I decided to pivot and make the best of a slow morning. I let the girls sleep in, soaked up some extra cuddle time with my three-year-old, Xander, and spent the morning reading books together. For a few hours, it felt peaceful.

​Then, I ran a quick errand in the afternoon. When I walked back through the door and touched Xander’s forehead, my heart sank. I didn’t even need the thermometer to tell me—the fever had hit him, too.

​Aside from being wiped out and sleeping a lot, neither of them really has any other symptoms. Just this stubborn, high fever. And while I’m okay with the extra rest and couch snuggles, the timing couldn’t be trickier. We are right in the middle of the countdown to Halloween, and our family loves hitting all the local trunk-or-treats leading up to the big day. Now, I’m stuck in that classic parenting tug-of-war: How do you balance life when half the kids feel great and want to go out, and the other half need to stay home and rest?

​The Unseen Weight of Staying Home

​People love to assume that being a stay-at-home mom is easy. No one tells you how isolating and overwhelming it can feel when the walls start closing in.

​When you’ve already been cooped up in the house for three days tending to one sick kiddo, and then the next domino falls, your first thought is just: Oh no, here it comes. Endless indoor time.

​You’re constantly trying to do the math in your head. You want to be considerate and keep people on the outside healthy. You’re trying to keep the healthy kids in your own house from catching it—even though, let’s be honest, it feels completely inevitable that it’s going to make the rounds through everyone.

​You can read every parenting book on the shelf, and not a single one of them tells you how to handle this. There is no manual for juggling sick kids, disappointed healthy kids, missed festivities, and your own cabin fever right before a major holiday.

​And of course, my own responsibilities don’t hit pause just because fevers are making the rounds. On top of playing nurse, managing homeschool, and keeping up with Girl Scouts, I’m still trying to grind through homework for my credential program and make sure every assignment is turned in on time. This week, they have me creating YouTube channels and—wait for it—raising a “Virtual Child” for class. Because apparently, raising four actual kids in real life isn’t quite enough!

​Right now, all I can do is take it one hour at a time, keep the medicine, the books, and my laptop close by, and try to make the best of this season—even if our pre-Halloween plans look a lot quieter than we hoped.

​To my fellow moms: How do you split your time and energy when half the house is sick, the other half is ready to celebrate a holiday, and your own to-do list is still a mile long? Drop your survival tips (or just some solidarity!) in the comments below.