What happens when mum gets sick.....

So it happens occasionally, I get sick. Shocking but true us poor mums aren't immune to all that snotty goodness our babies bring home. Thankfully for me it doesn't happen all that often but when it does, BOOM! I'm a single mum of 3 boys aged 7, 5 and 2 so even when I'm not sick my days are pretty much chaos. I was talking about this on the weekend with a friend who will soon be having her first baby and will be doing it solo. "Sooo, what do  you do when you get sick?" she asked almost afraid to hear the answer. I just laughed (then secretly felt bad because the poor girl's face just dropped) I will share with you my last sickly experience. All three boys had come down with a stomach bug. It had been going on close to a week. I thought I had escaped the nightmare when  they were better then all of a sudden it hit me. My head started pounding, my eyes were burning and my whole body was aching. I knew what was coming, I just wanted to curl up and cry. I managed to drag myself and my youngest to the school to pick up the older boys still to this day i don't know how i got back up the huge hill to my house. When we got home I just wanted to collapse. Literally as soon as my butt hit the couch "Muuuuuuum!! he took my truck", "muuuummm I'm starving", "mum mum mum mum muuuuuumaaa". Really? really?? Seriously kids can I not just lay here and die quietly for 5 minutes please?? No, it wasn't happening. I managed to drag myself from the couch and organise something that resembled dinner, pretty certain it was something from a can on top of some toast- it was multigrain toast because that makes it totally nutritious yes? Of course my darlings managed to get this lovely 5-star luxury dinner up noses, in ears and through their hair so then i had to drag them all in to the bathroom and into the tub. After about 17 emergency toilet trips i managed to get them in. I sat on the floor and let out a small sigh of relief that i had manged to get them all in there, then i remembered i still had to get them out and dressed and into bed...this was all too much..i wanted to cry...I wanted MY mum damn it! I literally laid down on the floor using the last clean towels in the house as a pillow. I was too scared to close my eyes even for a second because i knew id be out cold. The kids were splashing like mad, i was soaking wet and covered in bubble bath overflow but I just didnt care, I needed a break. I adore my kids and i would never ever change having them but it is times like these that i really wish i didnt have to do it alone. I used to beat myself up about the delightful dinners described above, I felt so guilty for not giving them a 'proper' dinner but I have come to realise that sometimes life happens and once in a blue moon if my kids have to have baked beans on toast for dinner it is not going to hurt them, I am not a bad mum because of it and my kids wont love me any less. One thing I have learnt since becoming a mum is there is no such thing as a perfect mum, although we beat ourselves up for not being a perfect mum at times and get a case of the old 'mother's guilt'. It's perfectly ok to not be perfect as long as you are doing the best you can and if baked beans on toast is the best i can do when i can barely step away from the toilet then that is ok. I have wonderful family and friends and they are supportive but they have their own lives too so most of the time I just have to keep going and do the best that i can and try not to be my own worst enemy. Life happens, mums get sick too we just don't get the sick leave and sick pay to get through it.