Full assed and half lunged.

Don't get me wrong, being a mom is great. Some times it is just less great than others. For example when you have a bad case of the lung rot at the same time as your younger child. You know who gets the pampering in that case and it sure isn't mom. Nope. In fact, because you let him crawl into your bed in the middle of the night, you get to enjoy being awakened by his coughing fits as well as your own. And, when you have a particularly nasty coughing fit of your own he gets to cover his ears and yell "Too loud mommy! Stop it!"

So essentially you get to fumble through your next few days sleep deprived and cranky on top of being sick. Then if you happen to be employed in a demanding career, you can go to work and suffer through non-stop meetings. And even if you get to arrange a few meetings that end up improving your project in ways you never dreamed were possible, you get to do so in phone meetings that you have muted your phone to keep your co-workers from hearing you try to hack up your lung.

And at night, when you return home to the abuse of your also sick child and the other not sick, but really needs some mommy time child, you can try to keep a good face forward for the family. But when you collapse into bed and you think you hear your lungs gurgle you finally give in and decide to call in sick the next morning and go to the doctor.

But the next morning, after suffering through yet another sleepless night of coughing fits (both yours and your child's) you decide to call into your first meeting since it is only a phone call after all and that can't really hurt you much. Then after discussing the horror of his coughing the night before, you decide he needs to go to the pediatrician more than you need to go to the doctor. Luckily the pediatrician assures you he sounds good and if he doesn't have a fever and his lungs sound clear it is most likely a bad cold that will be gone by the end of the weekend. Then instead of going to your own doctor, you decide to accept that diagnosis for yourself and go home and get some rest. And you call in sick for the afternoon as well and collapse into a heap in your bed.

And by the time the evening rolls around you do feel a bit better, and your child is acting more like himself and things look like they're going to turn out ok after all.

But I still want extra credit points that I can redeem next time I do a really half-assed job.