“Tomorrow was supposed to be my first day all to myself in eight years,” my friend Sara posted on her Facebook page the night before her youngest child was due to start kindergarten. “And Lauren just throws up.”

Been there, done that.

My kids, Ben, 9, and Tessa, 4, have the ability to synchronize their illnesses to the start of a major holiday or a work deadline with the accuracy of a sharpshooter. Is that the Thanksgiving turkey you’re taking out of the oven? I won’t be having any because my belly aches. You have an important meeting later today? Look at the rash spreading across my big toe.

We’ve had pinkeye on the Fourth, strep throat with jellybeans at Easter and a side dish of gastroenteritis for New Year’s brunch. For Tessa’s first Christmas, we feasted on Chinese takeout while applying Aquaphor to her chicken pox scabs. At just 6 months old, she hadn’t yet been immunized and picked up the disease from a boy at Ben’s karate class—something that rarely happens, said our pediatrician. Gee, thanks.

Thus, I’m on perpetual sick alert. on mornings of crucial meetings or heavy deadlines, I awaken with a start, straining to hear any stuffed-up breathing or excessive tossing and turning from my sleeping children’s rooms.

“Wash your hands before breakfast,” I shout as I herd everyone to the table. My ears prick (and I prickle) at each throat-clearing cough and sneeze as I check their color before they head to school. Is that mucus clear, yellow or green? We learn to ask as one of the earliest lessons of parenthood. and does my son really feel so lousy, or does he just want to stay home and watch the Good Luck Charlie marathon on Disney Channel?

It gets tricky. No one wants to be known as the parent who packs off a sick kid to school or, worse yet, sickens other kids by doing it. But we also don’t want to be the parent who misses the annual meeting so her kid can watch Star Trek, the Four-Hundred-and-Eighty-Third Generation.

These are the times that try moms’ souls—and when the work-at-home pull peaks. We long to be close to pour ginger ale and whisper soothing words, even as we dread emailing the boss that we can’t make it in today ... again. But there are bonuses for the boss, too: We improvise as we commiserate. We work on the fly while we coddle our kids. We meet deadlines and heal the sick simultaneously.

So it was no surprise recently when Ben came down with a mystery virus the day I had an important call with an insurance company executive. While he lay in his room sleeping, I snuck out to make the call. After we talked awhile, the executive said to me, “Do you mind if we cut this a little short? I’m working from home today because my daughter has some kind of bug.” It’s nice to know some things are as universal as the common cold. Pass the hand sanitizer, please.