Are Moms Allowed to be Sick?

In addition to the tshirts, backpacks and other swag that I got from VMWorld in San Francisco last week, I also brought back with me a nasty little bug that has taken me out of commission since last Friday. So no Labor Day BBQ for me - I was filling prescriptions at Kaiser and trying to keep from coughing up a lung.

In a rare event, I even had to call in sick the past two days. I mean, we're talking about a person with over 80 days of sick leave on the books and who gained an immune system up in Fairbanks, Alaska. Part of me wanted to just curl up in bed after a swig of potent cold medicine, but the other part of me has a seldom-confessed fear: what if they can do without me at work? I had to worry about that for about all of two hours before the "I know you're out sick but can you..." emails started flying in on my iPhone.

Luckily, I have a great staff that I can delegate almost all the day-to-day issues to and I think it's just as important to show you can build an organization like that as it is that you yourself are indispensable. However, the parent part is harder to offload when one is a single parent. Dropping kid off at school, taking the other one to orthodontist appointment, grocery shopping... This list goes on and on.

What impressed me these last few days is how my kids stepped up. They knew I was under the weather so the little things they normally bug me with seemed to disappear. My daughter was fetching me water and checking up on me. The dishwasher got emptied. Cats were fed. People went to bed on time and woke up on time. "Stuff" got done.

Sometimes it feels like I'm just barely keeping all the balls in the air between the juggling I do as a mom and a working professional. There's not many days where it feels *easy*. This week though, has proven I'm doing better than I give myself credit for. I could be proud of myself - but I'm more proud of my children.