After having to care for little John last week for a tummy bug, this week starts off with his older brother, Henry, being ill.

I just don’t do sick kids very well. I have to admit the extra care, I just find a bit taxing, okay a lot taxing! It makes me feel like a failure as a parent. I don’t have a great bedside manner, and the constant making soups or putting up with crankiness is hard on me. I know I should be all motherly and giving a bunch of hugs and such, and I do some, but I just feel like I lack the true motherly patience for all of it.

I do try to be patient, I mean that is what Mommies are for, right??? But why does it feel so hard?! Why do I feel like these things are “interruptions” in my daily duties of laundry and dishes and such. If anything I should be glad that it’s a break from the daily monotonous grind, and a chance to show my children the care and love they need when they feel bad.

I think it’s the whining and crankiness that gets to me. Or the the making of the requested foods only to have it turned down when it’s made. This constant picking of gross tissues when they miss the trash can, two feet away. Or the changing of clothes when they get messed up with snot wiped off on them and all the weird extras.

But, alas, duty calls and off I go, pop tarts are now the latest request. **SIGH**