I am home again this morning with a still-ill Owen; he is now taking antibiotics and some medicine to MAKE him cough.  Aren’t we always trying to make our kids stop coughing so they (we) can rest already?  Not in this case.  In this case, not coughing is notgood.  When he climbed into bed with us last night it was like having a furnace right next to me, so much so that I even turned off the electric blanket (gasp!).  His fever has abated somewhat this morning, although still fairly high, but my hope is that he will be markedly better after yet one more day of rest and good medicine and lots and lots of drinks of juice and water.  I think my boss wanted to be a little bit annoyed this morning when I called him, but what do you do?  I took Monday off, Steve took yesterday off, so by default it is my turn-and Steve is going to try to come home this afternoon so that I can go to work. *shrug* I love my job, and I like my boss a lot-I hate sitting home with a sick baby and worrying about how annoyed my boss is at work.  At least he won’t make fun of me-Steve already got seven kinds of hell for staying home yesterday (“Why can’t Kori just stay home again?” and there might have been a snide comment or two about him being, um, pussy whipped), which just annoys the hell out of me.  After all, aren’t both our incomes equally important?  Bah.  A rant for another time.

The thing is, without getting all sappy and lovey and starry-eyed, I know well how lucky I am that Steve at least acknowledges that it ISN’T  just my job to take care of sick kids.  Last year when Sam had the chicken pox, he took time off as well, and also took Sam to work with him for three days-yeah.  I know that his willingness to accept some responsibility not just for the child we share together as well as my other children is not always the case, and I don’t know if he really gets what a big deal things like this are to me.  I have been very used to doing it on my own, you see, even when I was married-so it is such a relief to not have to carry the burden on my own.  It is really a win-win situation for both of us-maybe not convenient or fun (though he and Owen both really enjoyed having a quiet day at home together yesterday) all of the time, but just one of those things that might seem minor but really strengthens the respect and caring we have for each other-not just as parents but as two people.  Just as I believe strongly that time alone is important for couples, I also believe parenting together helps foster those feelings of love and committment, which helps a lot when the inevitable shitstorm of life happens.

Matt’s newest installment of Time Out over at The Playpen  deals with something along these same lines; why don’t you go on over there and read what we five moms have to say about alone time?