Parenting tips: Stay in pajamas!

The plague hit our house this week.  The seemingly inevitable vacation week plague.  Two kids taking turns throwing up in the bathroom, one hacking and sneezing, and me with a bullfrog in my throat and goodness knows what in my chest!  So, today I bring you a parenting tip my mother passed on to me years ago:
When you get sick...do NOT get dressed until you are well.

Stay in pajamas and it will signal to your children that you are not yourself [assuming of course that pajamas are not your normal daywear]. If you are a single parent and must work, change into pjs as soon as you get home.  Even small toddlers will sense that something is different. 

Does wearing pajamas make it easier for you to keep the house going through the course of infection? No.
Does it gain you sympathy? No.
Will anyone seem to care that you too are sick? Probably not.
But ...
The second you drag yourself out of bed, hand over hand, and pull on sweats or jeans or any real clothes you have crossed a magical, clinical line in the minds of your children. In that moment you have been transformed. The good health fairy has come to you and bopped you on the head with her magic wand and... you are healed!  You and I know that an APB is still out for the mack truck that ran you down. Any adult can [and hopefully will] notice the sniffles, bloodshot eyes, or frantic races to the bathroom! But, in the minds of your children, you are well!
So, stay in those pjs even if you start feeling you can tackle life for a few moments at a time. Only when you can last a whole regular day... wash your hair, take a bath, put on your lipstick, brush your hair, and finally put on your clothes and really BE well.   Good Luck!

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