Abbey's Road: Embracing the unplanned along the parenting journey

Last week I wrote you all a sob story about how my baby was in kindergarten, and you may have been feeling a little sad for me and wondering how I’m getting along with all this free time on my hands.

Well, joke’s on you, because even though our local school district’s “official first day” was August 18, through various caveats and that old monster known as COVID, I have made it through the end of August with only two kid-free days.

So yeah, I’m keeping busy.

I tried to tell The Architect, who brought home COVID at this time last year and evidently decided to make it an annual tradition, that there are better ways to celebrate being back in school. Like having friends over or getting ice cream or at least doing homework.

I think she just secretly wants to hang out at home with me, though she would never admit it.

Now anyone who participates in a community living situation — house, dorm, assisted living, etc. — can tell you that, as a caregiver, one of the worst parts of caring for most types of illness is not so much the illness itself as the dread about who is going to come down with it next.

So on top of temperature checks and fluid-pushing and pillow-plumping and boredom busting, you have the mental background noise of, “Did I hear a sniffle from Healthy Kid A?” “Why didn’t Healthy Kid B eat her last bite of green beans? Is her appetite OK?” “Oh, no, my husband just sneezed. It’s all over.”

It’s a mental game, and I have not mastered it.

By the second day of this week, we had two sick kids home. Tiny, in bright spirits, skipped off to school like she owned it and I watched her disappear through the double doors with pangs of anxiety (I think it was anxiety) coursing through my chest, then sat around for most of the afternoon waiting for a call from the school nurse.

“I’m sure she’ll drop any day now,” I sighed over lunch.

“Don’t be such a pessimist,” Mr. Roy said to me.

“I’m not being a pessimist, I’m being a realist,” I snapped back.

I had to apologize.

You know, as time passes in the parenting journey, you ideally learn to let go of things and understand that, try as you might, you cannot control everything.

I had big plans for my first full, kid-less week at home. I was going to catch up on assignments, make the beds every day, clean the bathrooms, sew the button back onto Mr. Roy’s khakis, cook dinner every night. The living room was going to be spotless when my husband came whistling through the door at 5:10 p.m.; my hair was going to be perfectly coiffed and my apron starched so we could sit down to a quiet family dinner in which no food was dropped on the floor.

OK, just kidding. But I was going to have my act together, promise.

Doesn’t matter, because things are not going according to plan, so here is what I have to remind myself:

It’s a privilege to have a family to take care of.

It’s a blessing to have children who are mostly healthy, even if they occasionally drag home gems from the Petri Dish of Elementary School.

Taking care of sick kids (who are not, in truth, in very bad shape or even bed-bound) may not have been what I had in mind for this week, but it’s what happened, and I am a mom first — before I’m an employee or a cook or a housekeeper, I am a mom.

(I should mention here that I’m fortunate to have Mr. Roy as a faithful provider for our family, and I do not take this blessing for granted. Single parents, I think of you often and hope you have found your respective “villages.” You are amazing!)

So in my role as Mom, I’m going to do the best I can this week. The house may not be clean and my apron will most certainly not be starched, but we’ll squeeze in some extra cuddles and games of Uno and at the end of the day, my kids will know I love them.

You know what? I can think of worse ways to spend a week.

Abbey Roy is a mom of three girls who make every day an adventure. She writes to maintain her sanity. You can probably reach her at amroy@nncogannett.com, but responses are structured around bedtimes and weekends.

This article originally appeared on Newark Advocate: When sickness hits home, parenting comes first