When Sickness Hits Your House (and Everything Falls Apart)

Sickness in a house full of kids is… inevitable 🤍

And if you’re anything like me, it used to bring on so much stress and anxiety — especially when plans had to be cancelled and everything felt out of control.

In today’s episode, I’m sharing what happened in our home right before Easter break when the stomach bug made its way through our family one by one… and how differently I handled it this time.

We’re talking about:
 • how I used to spiral when sickness hit
 • what shifted for me this past year
 • how we manage sickness in a big family
 • practical tips that actually make it easier (buckets, towels, simple meals + more)
 • and how to handle the disappointment when plans don’t go as expected

This episode is real life, practical encouragement, and a reminder that you’re not doing anything wrong when sickness takes over your home.

Sometimes the best thing we can do is slow down and take care of our people.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:26

Hey friends, and welcome back to the podcast. Today's episode is very real. A very fresh one because we are going to be talking about something that every parent has to deal with. That is sickness. And not just uh one kid with a runny nose type of sickness. I am talking about when sickness hits your home and it just keeps going on and on and on, one after another, plan after plans getting canceled, and you feel like your whole week or the whole month has just been flipped upside down. I'm talking about this today because this literally happened to me last week, right before the five-day Easter break. Um, it was coming up. We had all kinds of Easter things planned. I had said I might not be able to get a podcast out last week, and I'm glad I did because it showed up here in the middle of the night, Tuesday night, we get woken up by one of our youngest kids with the stomach bug. I don't know about you, but if you're a parent who's in that really deep REM sleep right around midnight to 2 a.m. and a kid comes in telling you they have thrown up, that sends you into a deep panic. Uh, of course, we got up, helped the kid out, and Wednesday, I did have some plans, but they had to change. Uh, Thursday, I continued on with my day, going out. There was lots of kids home, but then the next kid started complaining about their belly. And of course, by the afternoon, they were down and out. Thursday night, we get ready for survivor. It's our teen night. They're getting out chips and dip and all the awesome survivor snacks we have. And I just start feeling not so well, which of course, as a mom, when you're dealing with sickness, you always have that in your head, like, oh my gosh, am I the next down? Or uh a lot of times my anxiety shows up as sort of stomach issues where I don't feel the best. But I definitely was like, I'm not gonna risk eating anything. I don't think I'm gonna make it through the night. And it has been a long time since I have gotten the stomach bug. But Thursday night, uh, I spent most of the night in the bathroom. By Friday morning, another kid was throwing up. And of course, by Friday night, Micah had come down with it. Just when I uh started to feel better, where's getting more things in my stomach? Yeah, Micah took a turn for the worse. And it just became one of those weeks where we're like, next one down, next one down, next one down. And here's the thing a few years ago, when that actually happened to us, a few years ago when the kids were quite a bit smaller, that sent me into a full-blown spiral panic. I'm talking anxiety through the roof. I would just be so focused on the plans we had, about Easter, about what we were gonna be missing out, the FOMO we were gonna be having, um, what people were gonna be thinking about us. I would literally feel so sick to my stomach thinking about sickness coming in to our house. But something over the past years had shift has shifted, especially after that incident. After watching Micah, he's so amazing in those times. He does all the cleanup, he is so helpful, he keeps everyone calm. He helps me not to go in a panic. He really is a very, very good husband when sickness hits our house. And with nine people in living in one house, uh, it's bound to happen that it's gonna go through the majority of us, the majority of us. There is nothing we can do about it. We cannot hide from all the things we uh are involved in. The kids all go to school, and of course, the kindergarten kid, their whole class got wiped out. So of course he was bringing it home to us. Uh, they have sports, they do voice lessons, we go to stores, we go to church. Sickness is just going to happen, and it's something I have had to learn that I need to let go of, and I cannot control it. So the question has become um not how do I prevent sickness, but how do we respond when it happens as moms? Um, preventative measures for sickness, of course, is lots of hand washing for us and lots of Lysel wipes. I have gone through the house multiple times, Lysel wiping every doorknob and light switch, device, controllers, remotes that people um touch. Those are types of things we can do in our home to prevent it. Of course, teaching our kids proper hand sanitation. Um, but how do I respond? How do I, how did I learn how to change my attitude and change my heart towards sickness? Because ultimately it's going to happen. So that is what I want to share uh with you today and give you maybe some practical advice. But honestly, I just we can't fight it anymore. We just lean into it. Our rule is when sickness hits, everything stops. Our plans are canceled, the schedule goes on pause, and we just rest. This is probably why I got sick. Because Wednesday, when our youngest was home from school, he really wanted me to just snuggle and watch a movie with him. And I did. And you know what? I'm not gonna say it was worth it because nobody likes being sick, but it definitely calmed me down to be able to just sit on the couch and curl up with him and relax. We keep our suppers super simple. I don't follow through in the meal plan if I need to be um attending to a sick kid. Uh, now that they're all older, uh, that is more helpful. But when they were little, definitely it's canned soup. It is soda crackers, ginger ale, and ice chips. Nothing fancy, but we just keep our food super simple. The third thing, and this is huge that a lot of people still tell me is a golden thing that they learn from me. I don't know if I posted it in a story many years ago. But one of the best things we do for our kids is everybody has a two-liter ice cream bucket beside their beds. So the kids that have underbeds, uh, the ice cream bucket is right there by their beds every night, regardless of if the stomach flu is going through our house or not. And then everybody has one in their bunk bed. These are there all the time, non-negotiable, nothing goes in them. They're literally for if they wake up in the middle of the night and instantly feel sick, they are to grab their bucket. Uh, they can try to make it to the bathroom, but they have to have their bucket with them so they can use the bucket. Um, and this saves so much laundry that the kids know they're there, they know how to grab them, they know when to get them. That literally our youngest is he's so good at it. Not every kid is good at it, but he definitely is really good at it. The bucket saves everything sheets, mattress, laundry, all the things. So if you learn anything in this podcast, learn to grab yourself some two-liter ice cream buckets and put them under your kids' beds or in your kids' beds. That way they can learn to grab them when their belly feels off and they do not feel good. Towels. Towels are another huge thing. So when sickness hits around here, especially if they've, you know, were sick in their bed, strip all their beds. And then I just use beach towels. I lay a beach towel down on their bed uh that they can lay on that. It's much easier to just um take a beach towel from their bed and throw it in the washing machine than it is to take all the fitted sheets off. And we don't really have that many fitted sheets for their beds, so they just can lay on a towel. This also helps on the couch because we have like a cloth couch. So if they are sick, I usually will take either just uh one of our throw blankets or some towels and put it down on the couch, and then that is their designated spot. Nobody is to touch that spot or get in that spot until they're feeling healthy and they get up off the couch for the day and everything goes straight into the washing machine. This also helps with we have some kids that sleep in higher bunk beds, but when they're sick, we put them on the floor uh with some towels or you know, uh a blanket to help save with laundry. Cleaning, we are obsessed with Lysol wipes when sickness um hits, especially like I said before, the surfaces, the uh doorknobs, the light switches, all those types of things. We wash hands, we do laundry constantly. It just is never-ending laundry when people are sick. If they've sat on the couch or in their space, all the blankets get put in the laundry, their pillowcases, their bedding, everything just goes through the laundry right away. And now let's just talk about the emotional side of sickness and the mom guilt because this becomes a huge part. I hated that I actually got sick for Easter. I had so many amazing Easter treats that I wanted to make, fun moments. We had the Easter egg hunt and all the things that I wanted to get done. And I spent Good Friday in bed feeling like absolute death because I had been up all the night before, sick. But I had to shift my thinking and just think honestly, when am I ever gonna get a day that I can lay in my bed and do absolutely nothing? I can sleep, watch Netflix, do whatever I want because Micah is home. He wasn't working that day and just rest. I just let Micah take over. And instead of fighting it and feeling like the kids were missing out, I knew that they weren't missing out. I knew we had lots of Easter treats. I knew that um I was gonna get better eventually. Luckily, it was just a straight 24-hour thing and that we could carry on once I got it out of my system. And that was a huge help. It was a huge help that Micah stepped in. It was a huge help that our older kids stepped in. Uh, we had a brunch on the Saturday, which all of our kids made it to because everyone had been healthy for a certain amount of time. The only one that didn't was poor Micah. But Jalen literally made all the food for the brunch because she was healthy, um, incredible. She stuffed all of our plastic eggs. And what really helped this year that I didn't really even think about, but all of our candy that we stuffed our eggs with this year were in bags. So she soaped and washed her hands and then used, you know, we had Sour Patch Kids in bags. We had these other gummies that I cannot pronounce the name. I'm sure you guys will tell me harbo gummies or whatever. We had those in packages. We had the foil wrapped eggs. So everything was wrapped and it went into our plastic eggs for our big family um Easter egg hunt. It just was really cool to see the kids, you know, say, whoever's healthy can still go to the brunch. Um, but I'm gonna need your guys' help. I obviously can't make anything, I can't touch anything. I'm still sick or contagious or whatever. So that was that was super, super helpful. And even with sickness in our house, uh, like I said, we did make it to the brunch. Some of our family, we, you know, told our family everything, let them decide. We washed hands. The kids went through last, it just it all worked out for us. We got to go to church on Sunday, we got to have Easter dinner with our friends, we got to play games, everything ended up working out. And what I want you guys to hear in a season that you're in where you have little ones and you feel like sickness is constantly in your house. It's just sickness after sickness. Plans continually are changing. Nothing is going the way you're expecting, nothing is going the way that you expected it. I really want you to hear this. There's nothing you can do about sickness in certain seasons. This is just very normal part of mothering and motherhood. And eventually you're gonna get to a place where your kids are older and they can actually take care of themselves and your plans don't have to change, uh, especially as they're older and they can stay home by themselves. Um it gets a lot easier, which is what my encouragement for you is it definitely gets easier the older they get. So this is a very um normal time for you when you have littles. This season feels heavy. It feels like it's gonna last forever, but trust me, it doesn't last forever. There will be brighter days where your kids will have colds or they won't feel good and they're gonna be able to take care of themselves. So instead of trying to control it, instead of trying feeling, you know, sad and discouraged that your plans are getting changed and all that stuff that comes with it, have a simple sickness plan. A few years ago, when it happened to us, Micah was like, hey, we're just shutting down our life for this, you know, stomach bug time. We're gonna just watch movies, we're gonna eat canned soup and crackers, and it's gonna be okay. We're not gonna do anything. It that's my sickness plan. So that's what I think about on sick days when I have to keep people home or do whatever. It's like we're keeping the plan very simple. You can also have some sick day activities home for the kids. Like I said, they were pretty down and out, so they just laid on the couch. I let them watch movies, I let them watch cartoons, listen to music for my older ones. Um, I definitely have this special nap time music that just like puts anybody to sleep. So I put that on to say, hey, I just want you to lay on the couch. I'm, you know, puttering around doing my own thing so that they can have naps. That's really important to get our bodies back and healthy. Um, some other things we have our coloring books for, you know, if they're not like still contagious. I don't want them touching too much stuff if they um are still being sick and things like that. But if they're home with, you know, something that they're on antibiotics for or just a cold or whatever, some new, you know, coloring books, some new little quiet toys. Um, my kids love reading. So maybe some chapter books that they haven't read in a while. Or maybe if you have like a little basket with some newer books in it that you can just keep on hand. Cozy blankets, I let them have their all their blankets. I just make sure I do them on a quick cycle or whatever before they go into bed. And I just, yeah, let them have space to get better and feel healthy again. That is how our Easter went. Not how I'd planned, but we definitely had a lot of fun, regardless. I mean, Thursday night was not fun for me. Definitely when you're sick is not fun, but we enjoyed our time together. So, in closing, if your house is in a sick season right now, you feel like you've been sick forever, you feel like plans are just constantly getting canceled or changed, I want you to just take a deep breath. I want you to slow down. I want you to lower the expectations, just take care of your people. You're doing a great job. And hopefully, I know if you're living in this area, this part of the country, the sun is shining, nicer weather is coming, open those windows, get some vitamin D. Make sure you're taking care of yourself because you are doing a really great job. If this episode encouraged you in any way, like you just feel thankful you didn't have the stomach flu for Easter, share it with a mom, especially if you've never heard of the bucket hack. That is a game changer for any mom. And I will maybe I should have like marketed my own buckets or something, but no. Two-liter ice cream bucket is gonna do you good. So share it with a mom who needs to hear this today. One who is in the trenches and feels like they have just had sickness after sickness after sickness in their house. And don't forget to please follow the podcast if you haven't already. Hit subscribe or follow on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and leave those reviews. Oh my word, the reviews really help to get uh the word out. So if you haven't left a review yet, please do that. We'll talk to you next week. Bye.