Yet ANOTHER Sick Day

Our boy is currently snuggling on my lap under a blanket, watching Toy Story 2 for the 12th time in 3 days. He is fever-free this morning, after two days of high temps and an awful, deep, painful-sounding cough. Just in time for the weekend.

It has been about six weeks since I returned to work after having the baby. At least one day of each of those weeks, I received a call from day care to come and pick up one child or the other. Yes, we have had six weeks of everything from runny nose to technicolor flu. Today is the first day of February, and I have already used exactly half of the sick time I am allotted for the year.

Thursday, when I received the most recent call, my single co-worker asked me "Do you get five days of sick time for your kids, and then five for yourself, too?" Um, no. I just get the same 5 days that everyone else does. "That sucks," she said, matter of factly, turning back to her computer. Why yes, co-worker, it does.

I don't think that as a mom, I should have any special privileges over anyone else. Unfortunately, life happens, and things move forward, whether my kids are sick or well. I would just love it if my company (a very large, global company, with lots of resources) would seriously look into some work from home options. I would not want to work at home every day, as I enjoy leaving my house and interacting with people who are able to drive, and don't need my assistance to wipe their nose. But every once in a while, it would be nice to have the flexibility to continue to be productive, even though I am not at me desk.

While my son is watching Horton Hears a Who, or taking a nap, I could be logged in to our network, cleaning up files and taking care of the things that I am not able to complete at the office due to the constantly ringing phone and interminable e-mail interruptions. Those little things that are not necessarily high priority until they build up to the point of needing to schedule an entire day to clean up the backlog. I would be contributing to the forward momentum of our company, but still able to get my son his juice boxes and take his temperature.

My company has done many surveys about the viability of work from home options, and inquires about the interest level from the staff. Like most large, global companies, the wheels of progress turn slowly sometimes. I am hoping that with this awful economy, the wheels might spin a bit faster as we all look for ways to streamline costs, without sacrificing market share. I am keeping my fingers crossed, but I'm certainly not holding my breath.

Really, I'm just happy that our peanut is feeling better.