Most college students during homecoming week are preparing to go to the football game, concerts, and parties. Not me. I was home performing my motherly duties.
Unfortunately, during homecoming my 1-year-old baby girl caught a nasty virus, the flu. Happy it was not COVID, but still sad that she caught the flu because I tried so hard to prevent it from happening.
As a college mom, your priorities are split in half and most people don’t get that. Most of my day is spent taking care of my daughter Kaydence because she comes first more than anything else. And then I’m a student.
Finding out my baby was sick had me crushed because I’m very protective and don’t like anything that makes her feel bad or gives her pain. I knew that her being sick would put me out of class until she got better.
This is when motherhood priorities trample over being a student. When you can’t take your child to day care or school, you cannot do what you have to do, whether it’s going to class or work. So, while homecoming was going on, I was at the hospital at 4 in the morning trying to see what was wrong with Kaydence’s breathing.
She could not get comfortable going to sleep because of her wheezing. During that time, I found myself doing breathing treatments, which consist of putting her on the Nebulizer for a while. She didn’t like it one bit. After that, I was always in the kitchen making her home remedies.
I am not a fan of western medicine because it is too easy for children to overdose, plus you have to do it in dosage versus ginger tea. I can make it all day and I wouldn’t have to worry about an overdose.
One of the things I found myself making the most was homemade cough syrup with the juice from an orange and pineapple juice with a dab of cayenne pepper because I didn’t want to have her tongue and throat burn, but enough to knock out the mucus in her chest.
Having a sick child while you have homework due is incredibly stressful because they’re babies and they want to be under you every hour on the hour and you just want to close your book or laptop and take care of them. As a mom in college, I have to take the good days with the bad days and I’m going to miss out on things like homecoming but moments with my kid are always worth it.