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Stay-at-Home Dad 101: I Confess, I was Secretly the Evil Co-Worker Who Always Came to Work Sick

Chances are, with it being this time of year, if you scroll through your Facebook feed right now, you’ll likely find a paragraph-long rant from someone declaring that people shouldn’t come in to work sick, spreading their germs with everyone else; how doing so only makes it worse for the whole office.

Here’s the thing: I was always that Scar or Jafar-like villain who secretly kept coming to work sick anyway. And in hindsight, I have no regrets about my selfish actions.

Strange Trivia Rabbit Trail: Have you ever noticed the common practice in Disney cartoon movies where the villain either has a foreign accent (to subliminally instill in us the propaganda that foreigners can not be trusted) or effeminate mannerisms (to further distance mainstream America from accepting the homosexual community)? It just so happens that both Scar (from The Lion King) and Jafar (from Alladin) relate to both of these tropes.

Yes, I was the co-worker who secretly came to work sick.

I deserve the electric chair, so I can personally relate to the lyrics of Metallica’s 1984 song “Ride the Lightning”, or at have least people standing on my front porch with pitchforks to denounce me for the heinous crime I committed more times than I could count, over the course of a decade.

If nothing else, surely some people could get together and create a clever hashtag to trend, to globally “sick shame” me on Twitter:

#SickShameNick

But with cold blood running through my icy veins, even now, I admit I wouldn’t have done anything differently.

I only had a limited number of sick days each year. I had to save them for my kids. My wife and I had a deal: We took turns staying home each time one of the kids got sick; which occurred a lot over the past several years.

Between two kids, this has included febrile seizures, a parapharyngeal abscess, tubes being put in ears to end countless issues with ear infections, as well as a few trips to the the emergency room.

And this doesn’t even include the Rolodex of times one of our kids simply had a temperature (that led to nothing more), and we had to leave work to stay home with them.

So obviously, “sick days” were never for me. They were for my kids.

I wasn’t willing to stay home and use sick days for myself when it could lead to me running out of them, then having attendance issues at work, and/or having to not be paid for work that day.

And that would all be on top of the medical bills that kept popping up an account of our kids being sick.

I am not ashamed to admit that I was always the one showing up to work sick while doing my best to keep it a secret; as I would chug an entire carton of orange juice at my desk, along with some priobiotic Kombucha, and Ibruprofen; as a cheap way to get myself through the day.

Amazingly, it usually helped restore me to health after about 2 or 3 days.

But don’t worry, entire world: I’ve been a stay-at-home dad for over 3 months now. I rarely get out of the house anymore. You are safe.

So yeah, that hashtag again…

 

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Dear Jack: You Got a Cold after Your Sister Got the Flu, Exactly a Year after Your Parapharyngeal Abscess

7 years, 2 months.

Dear Jack,

Leading up to this week, it was already on my mind; how exactly a year ago, you and I spent several days together in the children’s hospital after you got a parapharyngeal abscess as a side effect on Strep Throat.

And then this past Sunday, your sister got the flu, with a temperature of 106; therefore needing an IV for fluids.

So I just hoped then when you inevitably go the flu from her, that you wouldn’t have it as bad.

Fortunately, it appears you got a bad cold instead, more than anything. Your temperature peaked at only 104 degrees.

Therefore, on Tuesday, after you finally got to go back to school for one day (after nearly an entire month off due to the Christmas holidays, Martin Luther King Day, and a week of being snowed in), you were back at home with me and your sister.

It was surely a day of rest. We watched all 2 hours and 25 minutes of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, which you suddenly declared is your “favorite movie ever”; as well as 2 entire DVDs of Pink Panther cartoons. Your sister gladly went along with it, as it was a special treat for her to have access to that much screen time; though really, she was playing with her toys most of the time.

I would like to think that February will be a less chaotic month for our family. Hopefully we can just all be healthy and enjoy my TV premiere on “This Time Next Year” on the Lifetime Network.

No more snow. No more sickness. Just back to school and back to the routine of homework and your Pokemon obsession.

You are an intelligent boy with plenty of energy. You were weren’t meant to be cooped up in the house all day.

Love,

Daddy

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Dear Holly: Your 106 Degree Temperature with the Flu This Week

1 year, 9 months.

Dear Holly,

Last weekend was pretty intense, as we had to rush you to the Emergency Room twice in the same day; your temperature reached 106.

You had to be hooked up to an IV to make sure you got enough fluids. It was scary- but for sure, we didn’t have enough time to worry, only to pray.

I was amazed we didn’t have to stay overnight with you in the hospital. I had packed my overnight bag, sure that I’d be staying with you, since Mommy had to be at work the next day and your brother needed to be back at school.

But to my surprise, we took you back home and you were in bed by normal time. Even more miraculous, you actually slept through the entire night!

The following few days were filled with a careful regimen of alternating Advil and Tylenol every 3 hours; as ultimately, the prescription we received to treat the flu made you vomit and you couldn’t hold it down. Really though, the prescription only served to shorten the flu by a few days anyway.

The focus has been to get you to drink enough fluids. In addition to letting you drink juice (which is a rare thing in our house!), Mommy also started serving you water through a medicine dropper labelled “water”, alongside the ones from Advil and Tylenol.

Currently as I write this, you are out driving around with Mommy, and Grandma (who is visiting from California), going to look at model houses in surrounding neighborhoods (just for fun) and surely going to get some Gigi’s Cupcakes as well.

Though I offered to watch you here at the house while they were out, you insisted that you wanted to join them in girl time. It was as if to say, “No way, Daddy! I’m not staying home with you when I can get out of this house and see the world again!”

So yeah, that’s a sign you’re feeling a bit better.

Love,

Daddy

 

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Dear Jack: We’ve Been Snowed in for a Week Now, Technically

7 years, 2 months.

Dear Jack,

It’s now been a week since you’ve been to school. This is like Christmas vacation again, but with snow… and without all the presents.

A week ago we were informed that your school was going to be closed due to the chance of a blizzard the next day on Friday. Knowing you were also going to be off from school the following Monday for Martin Luther King Day, I mentioned to Mommy at dinner:

“Let me throw a crazy idea at you…”

She stopped me, as she had instantly read my mind:

I took you and your sister to Alabama so we could stay at Nonna and Papa’s house for a 4 day weekend, while Mommy stayed back in Tennessee to get caught up on work.

You and your sister got plenty of quality time with your grandparents; meanwhile, I got a little bit more caught up on one of my most coveted commodities: Sleep!

It was so rewarding to just head upstairs and sleep for 2 or 3 hours, knowing you and your sister were being taken care of.

And it turns out, it didn’t actually snow while we were gone.

But sure enough, on Tuesday, when you were supposed to go back to school, that’s when the mini blizzard actually arrived.

Our family has been snowed since then.

Hopefully, the roads will be cleared up enough for you to return to school tomorrow, which is Friday. At that point, it will have been a solid week without you going to school. Even then, you will just be there for one day and then it’s the weekend again.

You and I did get a couple chances to enjoy the snow outside, while Mommy stayed inside with your sister. But even then, the temperature has remained around 9 degrees most of this week, so we couldn’t stay outside all that long.

What an interesting week.

Love,

Daddy

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Dear Holly: Your Surprise Christmas Gift Arrived in the Mail!

1 year, 8 months.

Dear Holly,

The plan was for Uncle Joe, Aunt Rebecca, and your cousin Savannah to drive up from Pensacola to spend the Christmas holidays in Alabama with us at Nonna and Papa’s house. That was inspired by how well their Thanksgiving visit went just a month earlier.

However, the three of them got way too sick to ever leave Florida. So sadly, unfortunately, we didn’t get to see them as planned.

But even still, our family was pleasantly surprised this past week when an expected box arrived on our doorstep.

It turns out, Aunt Rebecca had our Christmas gifts shipped to us in the mail, so we could celebrate Christmas a little bit longer, into the new year.

I loved watching you open your gift. Your face lit up, “Baby!!!”

It was a Cabbage Patch Kids Cuties doll. And since that day you opened it, you’ve yet to spend a day without it.

You take the doll with you to bed, you push it in the stroller, and you attempt to even eat your meals with it.

As for your brother Jack, he was obviously pleased to receive a whoopee cushion, silly string, and slime. And Mommy loved her Mary Kay products.

Even I received something cool!

It’s a new mug with a big pickle for a handle. The next day at lunch, you sat next to me as I enjoyed my standard Ramen noodles it; while you munched on oatmeal.

There’s just nothing like getting a gift after you weren’t expecting to get anymore gifts. Typically, if there’s a mysterious box waiting for us on our doorstep, it’s because Mommy ordered something on Amazon, like a new water filter for our refrigerator.

But not this time.

This time, our whole family got a fun surprise!

Love,

Daddy