Time to Recover

Early in my mothering, an experienced mother shared this rule of thumb. For everyday a child is sick, give them an additional day to recover. Start the clock at the first sign of symptoms and stop it when symptoms are gone. If it has been one day, give one more day to recover. If it has been five, give five more days to recover. I will add, this works well for adults, too, when possible. Yet, it can be tempting to short change our recovery time. We are tempted to get back to life as usual as soon as our symptoms are gone. Not only are we not giving our bodies time to fully recover, we are missing an opportunity to rest and show comfort.

Saturday night, our 6 year old spiked a fever with no other symptoms. He ran the fever throughout the night and all day Sunday. We had him rest on the couch. We took turns bringing him water and fresh wash clothes for his forehead. He watched videos of his choice, a real treat. We read books together. We also cancelled plans for the day, other than Mass which we split so that someone was home with our little sick one. Sunday night, his fever was down and he was looking more like himself. When he woke up fever-free, we were happy... and tempted to go to our regularly scheduled gathering with friends. But we resisted, stayed home, and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves by eating well, resting, reading, playing games, listening to music, making cookies, and doing more relaxed things. Not only did our sick one get lots of extra attention and refueling, the rest of us had a relaxing and loving day too. These days are precious and not to be underestimated...or missed.