What is sleep, anyway?

Wordle 507 5/6

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I got up around the usual time yesterday and the kid got up with me, i.e. earlier than usual. Blame daylight savings time. We drove the kid to school. Traffic was bad and the weather was nice but I definitely wasn't up for biking. 

I took it easy. I recorded yesterday as a half-day at work and spent a lot of time in bed. At least half the time, actually sleeping or trying to; the rest, reading or playing phone games. 

We happened to get the kid at the same time as parents of some friends of hers, so they got to play in the playground for a while. Dinner was chicken lo mein from a freezer kit - very easy. I put the kid to bed with minor problems. T. and I watched one episode of Jon Oliver and I took a generic Tylenol PM gelcap before going to bed myself.  

I got up at 2 for some cough medicine. I got up at 4:30 due to snoring and went downstairs.

The kid is now not going to school because she had a bad cough. We hope that we can nip this in the bud early. She has missed a lot of school lately. But I definitely couldn't go into work feeling the way I do, and she's not that bad right now but there's a good chance it's just starting.

One of the things I miss about going to an office is clarity about stuff like this. If I normally went to an office and felt like I do today or yesterday, I'd take the full day off. Maybe I'd regret the PTO spent, depending on exactly how much I had and how bad I felt, but I'd stay home and not worry about how I'm spending my time as long as it's not actually athletic. Now, though? Either way I'd be home dressed casually. Is there a big difference for my health between sitting in front of a computer typing, sitting in front of a computer playing games, or sitting in front of a TV watching it?

Or sleep, hence the title. My fitness tracker app thinks I've been sleeping 9 hours for the past few nights. Does that mean I'm well-rested? There have been two interruptions each night. I lay down for a couple hours yesterday and the day before, but I'm not sure how much I was actually unconscious, as opposed to thinking, reading, playing phone games, or other things. Is lying down a good enough approximation for sleep regardless of my brainwave activity?

Or the kid. If she were three, I unambiguously couldn't work while taking care of her. But she's seven. She can happily watch TV for hours, and sometimes do a good job of entertaining herself quietly without TV. It would be unprofessional to plan on working a full day while parenting, but that doesn't mean I couldn't pull it off with just a little luck... (hypothetical, definitely not doing it today, just explaining my thought process on similar days.)