My boy is sick. He lays beside me in bed right now telling me over and over it’s time for him to go to sleep. Finally admitting that he feels horrible. He isn’t just “fine.” Telling me that he loves me and that he wants me to be right next to him. Right now and all night long. In my big comfortable cloud of a bed.
So here we are. Dan will sleep on the couch. I will sleep next to my boy. His fever will drift up and down. I will be here to medicate him and mother him. To listen to his breathing. To make sense of his nighttime mutterings. To touch his forehead and rest my hand on his back. To smile through worry.
This is the mothering that I want to be able to do. The instinctive sort. The natural nurturing of motherhood. But these past few weeks it has been incredibly difficult. Sick kids and a full time job just don’t go together. Instead of hunkering down with my oldest today, I had to drag him to work. I brought him a blanket and a pillow and set him up on the floor of my office. He had movies and games and Halloween candy. He even spent some time reading Harry Potter before his eyes started burning. All day long I told myself that this just wasn’t right. Wasn’t fair. He deserves better than the floor of my office. He deserves his house and his mom at full attention. A mom to distract him with stories and games. To give him a hug and rub his head. To put Rocky in for the hundredth time. To watch him get better, instead of worse.
Because that’s what happened today. Jamis got worse. No matter the two days I took last week when Maxie got ill, or the two days I took the week before that when I was ill, I decided that I’d just have to take another two days. Jamis shouldn’t have to wiggle around trying to get comfortable up against a filing cabinet. So we left. We were three hours shy of putting in a full day when I declared it was finished.
I’d go on here about what all of this really means but my kid is tossing and turning beside me. Wincing at the light coming off of the computer screen because his head and his eyes are throbbing from the fever. I think what’s most important for me to remember is that I am the mom. I do the nurturing. I wipe the tears away. I remember when the last dose of Motrin was given. I need to be here. For my kid and for me. And taking the time off of work, paid or unpaid, is inconsequential. Nobody pays me for motherhood and if you ask me, it’s days like today when that’s all a-okay. Because nurturing I can do. Lovingly. Openly. Honestly. Now shhh, someone is trying to sleep.
Read More in health, motherhood, Sarah Writes, three kids
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i love this post. truly, this is mothering; giving enough comfort in a hand on a cheek to let a little boy close his eyes and rest.
i hope he feels better soon.
poor baby.
And when a kid is really sick, the only one who will really make him feel better is his mama.
This is well put…as the mother you know just where you need to be and you are there, no matter the cost or sacrifice! Keep up the excellent work and I hope you ALL feel better soon!
Ben and Aidan have been sick on and off–literally–for 5 weeks now. There is nothing worse than when that happens…and I have to admit that it is the time when I do become “The Mommy Type” I usually insist I am not…nor want to be…except when they are sick. Then, I could care less whether I am thin, inspired, tired, or achieving my innermost dreams…I just care that they get better.
Poor Jamis.
And poor you, too, except that when our kids are sick, somehow, we are given a window through which to reach in and reconnect with them. Somehow. More deeply.
Maybe that’s just me. I don’t know. But them being sick does reconnect me to them.
I remember that deeper empathy, that deeper need and want to be with them, in THEIR space.
Not that I want them sick. Not that I want Jamis sick. I don’t. But that deeper connection? I’d take that every single day.