No One Makes Me Feel Better #LikeMomDoes

Brought to you by Tylenol and TheCo.

I remember the first time I was living away from home and I got sick. I called my Mom, just to tell her I was sick… because what else do you do when you don’t feel well? I remember saying, “I know you can’t do anything about it, but I’m super sick!” Just talking to her and hearing her say, “Awwww, my poor (20-year-old) baby!” made me feel just a little bit better! Then, of course, my Dad got on the line to hear my symptoms, and tell me to go pick up some Tylenol. (“But how can I go get it? I’m sick!”) 

Lying in my bed in my basement studio apartment in Montreal, which didn’t even have its own bathtub or shower (I had to go upstairs to the apartment of the family renting me the space to bathe), with my parents on the opposite side of the country, I reminisced about the best parts of being sick when I was a kid:

• Day time TV from the couch: I remember I would watch Live with Regis & Kathy Lee, then The View, then hopefully Maury Povich and Montell Williams would have good episodes (ie: not paternity tests… I preferred “Send my son to bootcamp!” themes).
• Missing school: I was a big nerd, so missing school just meant I would try to guess what I was missing and do it, or have my brother pick it up form my teacher. I still liked not having to actually go to school, and I remember listening to my Mom make the ever important “excusing my child from school today” phone call, which meant “This staying home sick thing is ON! Pass me the remote!”
• Snuggling up with blankets and a hot water bottle: My Mom actually makes microwaveable rice sacks now, but when I was a kid it was a good-old-fashioned water bottle, which she always came to warm up periodically.
• Chinese medicine: There’s this special oily tincture that my Mom would put on our tummies and our chests when we were sick, and the smell takes me back to my childhood. It came in an oval-shaped glass vial and it smelled a lot like Tiger Balm. I’m pretty sure we only ever called it “Chinese stuff,” but it was super soothing for aches and helped clear sinuses.
• Rice and broth: To this day this is my “comfort food” when I’m sick. Now I use vegetarian bouillon cubes, but when I was a kid my Mom would always cook plain rice, and serve with chicken broth, chunks of chicken breast and boy choy in a big bowl or mug. 

• Concerned phone calls from my Dad: My Mom was a stay-at-home Mom and worked part-time during my school years, so she was the primary caregiver on sick days (good thing, since I recently discovered my Dad doesn’t even know how to cook pasta). But I still remember my Dad would phone periodically throughout the day from his pharmacy to check in on me. I would pretend to be asleep and listen to them talk about me with concern, about whether my Dad should pick up some Gatorade for me or more medicine on his way home. Then I would know how serious my ailment really was! (Luckily, not usually more than the stomach flu or a bad cold.)

Tylenol wants to help you thank your Mom the million things that she does, including taking care of you when you’re sick! Check out their video below and visit www.LikeMomDoes.ca to create a shout out just for her!

 

Disclosure: This post was sponsored by the makers of TYLENOL® and TheCo., but the opinions expressed are my own.

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