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Dealing with Unexpected Days Off

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As a single working mother, when a child is sick and cannot go to daycare, I have no other choices, I must stay home.  My work flexiplace contract requires that I cannot work from home if I do not have daycare so these then become sick days.  Now granted, when I am going back and forth from the doctor everyday like I did last week, I didn't have time to work anyway.  So here's my question for those of you out there who have done it before...how do you "catch up?"

Let me say, I was on the phone and e-mail via blackberry for emergencies so at least I knew those were covered.  When I could go back to work on Friday, I started with prioritizing (yes, we should all be doing that all the time).  But seriously, when you have a day to do a week's worth of work, you do the most important things first...it seems so easy in that moment.  I tried to schedule babysitter time to go in on the weekend and work, but I was only able to get a few hours (including commute time) so I ended up spending the time prioritizing the tasks that await me tomorrow.

I still don't know when I'll be caught up and that bothers me because I have tasks to do before I can start a few projects I really want to work on.  But in my heart, I know that I did what I had to do last week.  I guess for me, balance is not feeling guilty when one thing has to trump another.  I know there are times when I volunteer, work late, or travel for work when something trumps my family time so when family time trumps that is okay, too.

What do you do when you don't have daycare unexpectedly?

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