1. Dont do laundry. Forget laundry. Buy new clothes, online if you have to. Only do laundry when you absolutely feel up to it or its absolutely necessary. Better yet, have someone else do it. Remember, Its not going anywhere!
2. Have many beds. When a bed is puked on, peed on or worse (!!) in the middle of the night, don’t bother, clean the child and move beds. Deal with any disasters in the morning (although wet stuff should obviously at least be tipped off the bed).
3. Own many sheets (see above). If you ever had to change 3 beds in the morning and expect to change them again in the day, you will know you need more then one extra set for each bed, ESPECIALLY if you are a follower of point one. Although this may be one of those “absolutely necessary” moments.
4. Ipads, TV, phones, heck, any screen you can find. There. are. no. screen. rules. when. ones. child. is. sick. Oh yeah, thats for the mum…… you can apply this to the child also. 😉
5. Pizza is a nutritionally adequate dinner when you need it to be. If you are gluten free and god knows what else free, you will learn to batch cook and get stuff from the freezer. Rice spaghetti with batch cooked bolognese anyone?
6. Getting dressed is for losers. Pyjamas rules. If you MUST, then fine, wear day clothes that are presentable enough for the DHL guy (who is delivering your new clothes), but there must be no buttons or zips anywhere.
7. Ice lollies. Get those ikea ice lolly makery things and freeze juice. Kids will LOVE these even when sick (and they will think you are a superb parent for supplying them).
8. Keep plenty of medications on hand. Having moved back to Europe I have learned two things, pharmacies in most places don’t deliver, and they are usually closed at times when you most need medication. So unless you want to drive (in pyjamas) to the one open pharmacy at midnight thats 1 hour away, keep everything you need at home. Plus extras.
9. Hospital runs never happen calmly. If there is even the slightest chance you may end up in one, pack in advance. Otherwise you will end up in there with uber ugly slippers (the other mums WILL laugh at you) and whatever strange stuff your husband / friend / neighbour can come up with to bring you 1-2 days later, usually stuff from the “I am donating this to the red cross box because it no longer fits me” pile. I speak from experience here. Just pack ok?
10. Chocolate. Yes. It really IS the answer sometimes. I don’t even like chocolate so much. But sometimes. it fixes almost everything. Go ahead. Calories don’t count when your kid is sick 🙂

-Linda