I am all too aware that I write/tweet/dm about being sick all the time with this pregnancy, but it’s almost my entire world right now.

However, this post is not about barfing, maternity sick.

It’s about being SICK sick.

You know, the kind of sick where you have a high fever, chills, aches, sore throat, congested chest, sinus pressure and every part of your body hurts. Even your HAIR hurts.

That?

Would be me right now.

I hate being sick.

I get sick a lot.  In fact, I would say that I am probably one of the more sickly people I know without having something major huge on the medical horizon. Just a bunch of little to medium to medium big things that stack on top of one another. (I also know I am not the best at taking preventative action for a lot of these things so I take responsibility for a lot of it.)

I don’t do sick in a brave or graceful fashion, sadly. I am a total baby about it and whine when it happens. I would not have fared well as a pioneer on the planes, hauling a handcart and gaggle of children like a lot of my ancestors. I know this.

It gets worse when it is a long time getting better or if it compounds. Like now, where I am sick sick on top of being maternity sick. I’m not even sure where I got it because I rarely leave my house lately, but I now have a gross flu/cold/bubonic plague and/or alien mutant strain of all of the above on top of the barfing. So, my apologies. Seriously, if you want to just stop reading me until June when I deliver and feel better I will understand. It would get tiring to listen to all the time.

Since this seems to be a significant sickness and I don’t know when I will be able to post next, I wanted to post a list of my must-haves and comfort tips for when the plague falls on the Looney Tunes household.

MY TOP SICK TIPS:

MISO SOUP: I often eat Asian soups when I don’t feel well. They are comforting. When I feel like this, I prefer miso soup. It is heaven on a sore throat and the steam from the bowl immediately makes your nostrils feel better. If I don’t have a fever or really sore throat, I also like eggdrop soup and hot and sour soup, but for the most part miso soup is the bees knees.

A REALLY GOOD, LOTION BASED TISSUE: If you sneeze continuously or have a bad head cold, you must have good tissues. Use cheap tissue and you will feel like you are wiping your nose with sand paper in short order.  It’s fine if you have the occasional sniffle but if you know you have a hard core “ICK” coming on? RUN DO NOT WALK TO BUY PUFFS PLUS. The delicate skin on the sides of your nose will thank you.

A GENTLE MASSAGE: If I can bribe or beg Jon to do it, a good lotion rub usually helps. It hydrates skin and usually helps the back pain I have from shivering with chills. Plus, massage just makes a world of difference for me.

EYUCALPTIS OIL: This really helps with congestion and smells YUMMY. I use it in lots of different ways: On hot wash clothes, a TINY dab on my nose and chest and putting it into steaming water and inhaling.

ZINC LOZENGES: The singers secret.  If you have a sore throat, zinc lozenges will increase healing time by a LOT. It is a natural antibiotic. Go to any opera company or music department during cold and flu season and you will see people sucking on those babies for dear life. My professor kept a small dish of them in her office for students.  They are not the best tasting thing on the planet but they work.

NASAL IRRIGATION: This is basically just what it sounds like: you are irrigating your nasal and sinus passages with liquid to clean out allergens and congestion.  You can either use a sinus rinse, water, or again with the singers secrets: warm salt water.

I have done the salt water thing before performances to be able to sing. It is IMMEDIATE and totally gross, but dude…it gets the icky goop out and lasts a long time.  It stings and really sucks, so I have to be pretty bad off and usually need to be performing to go through the salt water thing.  Also? I do not recommend this course of action if you are dehydrated, for obvious reasons.  I tried it last night because the pain in my head got pretty bad and I was in a really bad mood and I didn’t have any sinus meds, so I tried it…and ended up with a whopping nose bleed because I am pretty dehydrated from barfing. So…use caution.

Plain warm water is usually fine. Lots of people use a Netti Pot for this, but I don’t bother because I have been doing it so many years, I just use an adult ear syringe (Just like a baby syringe you use to clean out their nose, but much bigger.).  If you have bad sinus congestion and need to, um, NOT…you really don’t get better than this treatment.

WARM HERBAL TEA/WATER WITH LEMON AND HONEY: Like the above tip, I have to be pretty bad off or have a performance coming up to actually do this because I am not a fan of teas, but lots of people love this. The honey coats your throat and makes it feel much better.

A WARM WASHCLOTH: My mom used this to help my poor, anti-morning person self wake up gently. It is the BEST way to slowly wake up (and way, way, WAY better than when she would burst into my room singing the BYU fight song.). Next time you have a sleepy head child? Try this. Repeat if necessary, but it ALWAYS helped me wake up better than anything.

It is also really good for comforting feverish/chilled skin.  Take a lukewarm washcloth and wipe your face, neck and arms and hands.  Because it is warm, it won’t shock you with tempature but then the water cools off and helps wake you up and feels good to hot, dry skin.

COLD SPOONS: I don’t know about you but when I get sick my eyes ACHE. I put a couple of big spoons in the fridge and when I stumble downstairs I can take them out and hold the backs of them against my eyelids. It feels so good and cools them down.

COLD BOTTLED DOLE PEACHES: I ALWAYS crave these when I am sick like this. And? I NEVER HAVE THEM AROUND WHEN I NEED THEM. :)  I love Dole plastic bottled peaches and when they are cold they are like heaven to a fevered, dehydrated body.

A GOOD CHAPSTICK: I constantly struggle with chapped lips because I live in a desert and am perpetually low on hydration lately but when I get sick it is even more key. Feeling like crap is bad enough without cracked, bleeding lips.

COUGH SYRUP CAPSULES: I HATE COUGH SYRUP: Seriously. You know I am very ill when I beg to go to the hospital, Dr’s office or request prescription cough syrup.  One of the best inventions ever is Nyquil in a capsule. I am grateful for it often.

TAKE A HAIR DRYER TO BED WITH YOU: It’s a little weird, I admit, but my husband gave me this tip from when he was growing up.  Heating pads and hot water bottles are great, but when you have full body chills, this is the best way to instantly warm up your entire body.  Put the dryer under your blanket (DO NOT BLOCK THE FAN, THOUGH OR YOU WILL KILL YOUR DRYER) and turn it on medium.  You will warm up really fast and stop shivering. Jon likes to leave it on low for long periods, but I usually just warm up, turn it off and repeat when needed.

So, there you go. Just some tips to make being sick a little easier. I’m now worn out and going to do my last tip: SLEEP.

Do you have anything YOU do or your mom did to help the hack-hack-hacking a little more bearable?

I have a little confession to make.

I have a second Facebook account that I use purely for playing around/wasting time on lame, cheesy, juvenile applications I would be WAY too embarrassed to have show up on my regular account.

It’s also handy for internet stalking.

I’m kidding about that last thing.

Sorta.

I have another post that will go up tomorrow but I had a situation come up that I could use some input on from Ye Internet Peeps, like, um, now.

My 12-year-old came home from school and told me he made a friend that lived near by and asked permission to go play at his house. He lives 3 blocks away, but James had no phone info for them, he said he thought the parents “would probably” be home and didn’t know this kids last name.

I panicked.

You would think that since I have been mothering for almost 13 years this situation wouldn’t throw me, huh? I will be up front and say that I feel embarrassed and inadequate that I didn’t have a better idea what to do here and want to improve, so I’m talking it out with y’all.

I have quite a bit of social anxiety.  I’m extroverted as all get out, but my anxiety is a whole ‘nother party goin’ on under it all.  Since I have a lot of feelings of inadequacy as a mom, it tends to rear its head the most when I am dealing with other parents and mothers. I feel very uncomfortable contacting mothers I don’t know to set up playdates and while I am really happy when my kids get invitations places (birthday parties, ect.) because it makes THEM so happy, I have some dread mixed in as well.

As a result, and because of where we have lived, that we are inactive from church and the school our kids go to, my children have not had much of a social life. They don’t seem to overly mind because they are each other’s best friends, but I have also fretted and worried about it because of my own feelings of loneliness as a kid.

However, we have talked about it a lot and honestly, they don’t seem to have the same feelings that I did or the same feelings of rejection and isolation that were my companions when I was growing up. Still, I know that they wish they had more playmates that live around us.  It’s why we are putting Christopher in a new scout troop soon and having him go to the nearby elementary school.

Coming home with an announcement of a new friend and a spontaneous invite to play RARELY happens.

My son has been doing better in his new school but there is a gang of 7th graders that give him trouble on the bus. According to him his new friend “isn’t a bully but he is friends of the bullies and because of that they have been leaving me alone. ”

Thing is? I know NOTHING about this kid. Or his home environment, or his parents.  Or if there are guns in the house or if they have supervision, blah, blah, blah.

It was 4:00. He REALLY wanted to go.

I told him if and ONLY if a parent were home he could go, to not be too loud and wild, to make sure he knew and respected any house rules, to clean up any mess he made and if there was NOT a parent at home he was to turn his heiny back around and come home because he wasn’t old enough to hang out at a friends house unsupervised and that I was trusting him a huge amount in the situation.

(I also told him that, despite the fact that I hung out with my friends EVERY SINGLE DAY after school at his age, this was not going to be a regular thing in his future. He’s still to young to be doing that, IMO.)

So here I sit with an hour-and-a-half left before he comes home wondering if I did the right thing. Am I freaking out way too much about this? At 12 do you have to call the parents and feel out the situation or is it acceptable to ask your kid?  Or if I should have freaked out more and not let him go until I could (painfully) call the parents and talk to them first?

It may not help me in this situation but you all were so helpful about the grocery store situation and if I should let him shop occasionally on the way home from school, that I wanted some further advice. It helps me sort out how I feel about everything to get input.  (BTW-it’s going well. He is going to make his first purchase this week and make dinner after some “trial runs’)

WHAT WOULD YOU HAVE DONE?

P.S.   Reminder-I live in HAPPY VALLEY. Not a gaurantee of safety, but it is seriously the safest metro area in the country for like, 3 years running. The people here for the most part are kind, honest and trustworthy. Living in a safe place is no gaurantee of safety and at times may create a false sense of security, but I do have to throw that out.

P.P.S.  After publishing I felt I need to include that at this moment there is NO FREAKING WAY I could drive to drop him off and check the situation out. I ran out of my barely effective anti-nausea meds today and have been hurling almost non-stop waiting for Jonathan to get home with my refill. I doubt I could back the car out of the garage safely. Think what you will, it just wasn’t an option. (This also would be why I rarely leave my bedroom lately.)