Five Days Stuck Indoors with a Sick Kiddo Feels *SO* Damn Long

"I feel like I don’t quite remember how to human after spending the majority of my time these past five days taking care of my sick kiddo."

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Do you remember that scene in Toy Story where Buzz Lightyear is finally awakened and he’s astounded to find himself on a strange new planet? But then all the other toys tell him that this is just a kid’s room and he’s actually a toy.

That's kind of what I’m feeling right now. Except I wasn’t stuck on pause inside of a calm, quiet box all by myself. Instead, I’ve been stuck inside of my house for the past five days due to the frigid temperatures that swept the US during this past long weekend… and also because my almost 4-year-old kid has been sick with what we found out on Monday is influenza B.

Me snuggling Rio during his naps while he’s sick.

I don’t know if other parents experience this—and I shouldn’t really be that surprised by the feeling considering that I gave birth at the start of the pandemic so Rio’s first year of life was basically spent indoors—but I feel like I don’t quite remember how to human after spending the majority of my time these past five days taking care of my sick kiddo.

There’s this really weird thing I remember reading about years ago, how the human body doesn’t really remember pain. Our brains remember pain and can remind us to, ya know, not go running down the stairs for fear that we’ll stumble on a toy and break our toe again. But the body doesn’t actually remember what that felt like. And apparently, it had something to do with giving birth—the joke back when I read this being that nobody would ever have a second child if we actually fully remembered how painful labor truly was.

I haven’t read The Body Keeps the Score (though I will at some point!), but I’m very familiar with the concept, and we’ve discussed it in therapy plenty of times. I am sure that my body has plenty of trauma it has retained from my own PTSD experiences and those of my ancestors, so I’m not fully sure where the whole “we don’t remember pain” thing comes in but I do find it curious that even after years stuck indoors, being stuck inside again feels like a whole new and terrible experience each time.

I love my son, and I'm an empath by nature and very much the “older daughter takes care of everyone else” stereotype. I love taking care of my bebé. But I also find it incredibly exhausting.

It’s draining on me. And I think we often don’t acknowledge that we can have two feelings at once. That we can both find it incredibly fulfilling and loving to take care of our sick child (or other loved one) but also simultaneously be so bored that your brain feels like it literally hurts and the muscles in your arms are so tired that you’re not sure how you’ll carry him to bed tonight.

On top of the sickness at our house (which I’ve somehow not caught, thanks to the science behind the flu vaccine), my husband has chronic back pain and is experiencing a terrible flare-up. Meaning, our usual pattern of switching off childcare duties so the other person can take a break or get some work done is simply not able to happen right now. He’s home, but he can’t move, so even doing his usual chores (like dishes and laundry) falls on me.

Five days of being stuck at home is a lot, apparently.

Years of being stuck at home was a lot, too. And yet, somehow, we survived, and I know we’ll survive this.

In August 2021, I was diagnosed with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). I also experienced terrible burnout and the return of my depression last year after being laid off from what I thought was a dream job. (Parenting Editor at theSkimm, in case you’re curious.) Even though I was already overqualified for that job and struggling a bit because I was only doing 20% of what was in my job description—and it was the other 80% where my true talents lie—it was still a huge blow.

Then I spent 11 months unemployed, and though I love my new job, I’m still overqualified and making 2/3 of my salary before everyone started to freak out about the economy at the end of 2022.

Plus, my child went from baby to toddler to preschooler during all of this, so my experience of being stuck indoors today is vastly different than years ago. (Fuck, isn’t it so depressing to say that the start of the pandemic lockdown was “years ago?”)

These past five days have been brutal. The last few years have been brutal, too.

It feels as if every time that I get on what I think is firm footing, something happens to throw me off again. The stressful holidays, yet another sickness, frigid temperatures that mean we can’t be outside because it’s so cold that we could get frostbite on our faces in less than 10 minutes. And yet another sickness.

I’m not sure how we’re all still surviving this, but I know that we will.

Yet five days indoors, barely squeezing out time and mental energy for work because my family can’t survive me not bringing in any income (and I’m still not bringing in enough to meet our base needs), is weighing on me.

Mind you: we’re lucky in that my child is fine. We had three days of a high fever, one day of no fever but barely any eating due to a sore throat, and then another day of a sore throat that began with throwing up this morning. The sore throat seems to be getting better so I’m crossing my fingers that he doesn’t throw up again tomorrow morning because I can’t imagine how we’ll make it through one more day of laying in bed, watching YouTube Kids on the iPad, trying to make sure he’s drinking enough water and at least having a couple of calories here and there.

Meanwhile, I definitely haven’t had enough calories myself these days and I’m not sure when was the last time I drank some water. (Hold on, pausing to do just that.)

And taking some time for me right now to do some writing is not easy. I mean, my husband, with his searing back pain, is doing the best he can to entertain and care for our kiddo, but most kids still tend to go to mommy first in heteronormative households, and ours isn’t any different. Plus, the thing I *actually* wanted to do this evening (a virtual meetup for the queer creatives at the local writing center) wasn’t really a feasible option considering that Rio probably would have screamed bloody murder if I left his presence. My supportive husband kept encouraging me to go, but I just couldn’t imagine a scenario where things ended well.

Five days.

It’s nothing in the span of a childhood, of a lifetime. But it’s so damn long when you’re in the thick of it.

So I’m just here, reminding myself that there is life beyond this all-too-familiar planet of kid sicknesses and never leaving the house. And that, as they say, the days are long but the years are short.

But also, these days are LONG.

At least, from the newly formed group chat of a few nearby moms with kids in my son’s daycare class, I know I’m not alone in feeling like this week may never end and the runny noses will soon drown us in tissues. Just knowing that is making these last five days a little easier.

How did you survive the frigid temperatures this week? Do you find yourself constantly stuck in the “my kid is sick again” cycle? Can you relate to the feeling of “the days are LONG” but also feel good knowing you’re not alone? I’d love to hear from all of you!

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Talk soon,

Irina (she/her) - raising a March 2020 Gen Alpha kid