Nobody tells you this part. Nobody sits you down and says,
“Listen… diarrhoea is actually worse when your kids are toilet trained.”
Because when they’re babies, it’s gross but manageable. You wipe, you bin, you move on. But when they’re older? Oh no. Now it’s screams from the toilet every twenty minutes throughout the night.
“MOMMMMM, I’M DONE, I NEED YOU.”
Why do you need me?
Because apparently wiping your own arse is still optional in this house.
Now, my four-year-old — fair enough. I expect to be involved. But my seven-year-old? With the shits? Absolutely not. Yet there I am, dragged into emergency bum intervention because nobody wants a sore arse, dirty pants, or that smell. Honestly, fuck my life. I need a full hazmat suit and clearance from the government.
No one slept.
They didn’t sleep.
I didn’t sleep.
We were all cranky, snapping at each other like feral animals trapped in a house that now smells like regret.
Morning comes and we’re absolutely sick of each other’s existence. My youngest wants to sleep but keeps needing the toilet. My seven-year-old’s diarrhoea has stopped — hooray — but now he’s got tummy pain and a barking cough that’s doing his asthma no favours. He’s coughing, wheezing, needing his inhaler, and I’m standing there thinking, this is how I snap.
And this — THIS — is why I’m not at work. Because the good Lord decided it was my brain’s turn to give up on supporting me.
Fucking traitor.
Midday rolls around. The youngest finally crashes out on the sofa. Victory. I tuck my seven-year-old on the other sofa, whisper a small prayer, curl up next to the youngest and start to drift off.
Sleep. Sweet, beautiful—
NOPE.
The fucking cat decides this is the exact moment she needs to go outside and meet her cat posse. What a bitch. I get up, let her out, and like something rising from the dead — the child awakens. Fully alert. Ready to live.
Get me off this planet.
And just like that… it’s school run time. I leave the youngest ones with my fifteen-year-old the second he walks through the door, because kids with diarrhoea in the car is a gamble I refuse to take. I’ve lived enough.
The rest of the day is survival mode. Cooking dinner while gagging. Cleaning while questioning my life choices. Bathing children who are somehow still sticky despite being ill. Herding them into bed, praying — actually praying — that tonight might be better.
By 8pm I’m curled up on the sofa with the TV on. I remember nothing. I black out.
I don’t wake up refreshed the next day.
I wake up still tired.
Because diarrhoea doesn’t just empty your kids —
it empties your soul.
Mom Truth
If you’re reading this thinking “Why does this feel like my house?” — congratulations. You’re normal.
This isn’t failure.
This isn’t bad parenting.
This is just life kicking you in the arse while you’re already down.
And sometimes surviving the day is the win.
👉 Be honest.
Have you ever survived a stomach bug with kids and thought “this is how I go”?
Drop your worst illness-with-kids story in the comments — no judgement, just solidarity.
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Because if we don’t laugh at this stuff together, we’ll cry into our cold cups of coffee.
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