The things I've done

Last week I wrote about the things I was going to do to occupy myself and justify my existence because I'm not bringing in money into the household coffers at the moment.
I made inroads into the piles of papers we had collected and never filed away properly.  I sorted some and had a therapeutic chucking-out session into the wheelie bin.
This week I have taken several steps forward.  I got down on my hands and knees and cleaned the kitchen floor the hard way.  None of that pushing a squeegee lark!  This was good old-fashioned on-yer-knees scrubbing.  I put my nose to the floor and had a good look under the kitchen cupboards.  Thankfully, there was no dead mice - that was what I had been dreading the most.  But there was a tennis ball, lots of crumbs and a few nailed-down-to-the-floor stray chips.  
When I had finished, and, on a roll, had even shined the top of the bin, I had a lovely moment. (They don't come along too often).  The husband noticed, yep, noticed the clean floor and remarked how nice it looked.   Now I can't complain about doing everything and getting no thanks for it.  Astutely, he has sensed my frustration and has told me it doesn't matter about the money (well, it does, really) and that I can contribute to the household in lots of different ways.  My clean kitchen floor clearly hit the ''contribution'' button.
So, galvanised, I decided to roll my sleeves up further and clean the bottom of the bin.  However, the phone rang.  It was the school.  One and only son had been sick.  Could I go and collect him? 
It was at this point that I realised I had experienced a ''good'' side to being out of work.  I had all the time in the world to go and pick up a sick child and tend to him.  I didn't have to rush out of the office, making loud, profuse apologies, while wondering if there would be comments behind my back about me not pulling my weight. 
I have been sympathetic to one and only son and not unconsciously blamed him for being ill or making me stressed. He has lolled around on the sofa, watching the cartoon channel, and we had a nice catch-up chat about how he managed to get out of the line in the playground, ask the teacher if he could sprint inside because he thought he was going to be sick, and managed to make it to the sink with seconds to spare.  All in all, he says it was a very ''clean vomit''.  In return, I congratulated him on not making a mess all over the floor at school and placed a bowl beside him ''just in case''.   He made several impressive spits into the bowl just to remind me that he is not yet fully recovered. I was so laid back and un-stressed by the whole ''child falling ill'' happening that I even managed to smile benignly when he accidentally dropped the telly remote control into the spit-laden bowl.