Who covers for Mum?

I'm on day eight of the cold from hell. I've gone through sore throat, stuffy head, tickly cough, stuffy nose, lost voice, snotty cough, and I'm quite frankly fed up of it!

My first mistake was being Mum. Baby Badger came down with a cold last Wednesday, and the poor thing was sneezing snot everywhere and really not happy about it. The stoopid voice inside my head was grateful that I'd only got a sore throat and had obviously escaped the full force - Hello! Seriously, I thought that?! - and she came into bed with us for the night for some extra comfort and unrestricted booby milk. It did, of course, mean I got much less sleep than normal as our bed is simply not big enough for the three of us, and the cold took hold. Bah!

My second mistake was attempting to carry on regardless: I had a full week of evening activities that I didn't want to cancel. A couple of years ago I could have done it. Apparently now I can't. Bah!!

This wasn't intended to be a rant about feeling unwell, honestly! It is, after all, just a bad cold. I guess my main point here is this: who covers for Mum when she's ill? I had one relatively recuperating day while Baby Badger was still ill so we spent most of it in bed together feeding and sleeping, but for the rest of the week I've had a bright and bushy tailed 11½ month old wanting stories, games, food, carrying around and general full-on awake attention while I've worked my way through mountains of tissues (which I then had to stop her from eating).  Exhausting! It was such bad timing: family members were either away or unavailable; Father Badger wasn't able to work from home at all.

So... what tips do you have for low effort entertaining? Not that I intend being this ill again, but it's always best to be prepared.

By the way, I was amazed at just how quickly Baby Badger recovered from the whole thing - yey for booby milk! I'm actually quite jealous that I'm taking so much longer to kick it - I've had a few people suggest that I express my milk, shove some up my nose and drink the rest. That doesn't entirely appeal, but if it's not gone in a few days I may be reduced to giving it a go...

Image: Paul / FreeDigitalPhotos.net