May 24, 2011 ~ Day 165 Just Another Fun Little Surprise...

Here are the plans I had for today, as the busy and productive mother of three:

After jumping out of bed right on time, my husband and I would seamlessly get our three children bathed, dressed, fed and school lunches prepared. By the stroke of eight (a.m.) my boys would be standing by the front door ready to go for their day.

Then, I would make my own breakfast, play with my daughter and begin to work on researching content for my husband's company website. Once my daughter grew tired around 10 or 10:30 I would put her down for her morning nap and do some serious article writing for two hours, catching up on my work for the company AND earning the money toward my son's June preschool tuition.

At 12:30pm, my newly awakened daughter and I would happily drive to retrieve the preschooler at which point we would go to the park or come home and practice riding bikes. (He's determined to get rid of his training wheels, wanting to be like his big brother.) We would play like this until the time arrived to collect their big brother from kindergarten.

There you have it... the ideal morning I'd planned. At some point we might even have done some grocery shopping or made a library run. It's a gorgeous day outside - sunny and bright with blue skies and a nice temperature. We could even have stopped by the beach!

* * * * *

Here, however is what actually happened this morning:

• I woke up to the sound of a thick, hacking cough. 'Who IS that?' I wondered aloud.
• I entered the main room to find not one, but TWO of my children sitting at the breakfast table coughing up a storm. Not good.
• My husband and I, after a brief discussion, decided that a cough alone was not serious enough to merit keeping our younger son home from school. Bathtime rapidly ensued.
• "Mommy, I don't feel well enough to go to school today. I'm sick!" announced the middle child.
• After fumbling in our bathroom cabinet I located the ear thermometer. "98.1!" I pronounced triumphantly. "NOT sick. Time for school!"
• 8:03am... my husband left to take our neatly dressed younger boy to school - monkey lunchbox in hand.
• 8:04am... I breathed a sigh of relief and prepared to take our elder son to kindergarten.
• 8:10am... There came a knock at the back door. "Honey?" I called out, "Is that you?" / "No mommy," a small voice replied, "It's me. Daddy couldn't take me to school today because while we were driving my tummy felt sick."
• I opened the door. Standing before me was our three year old - still holding the monkey lunchbox - with a big wet stain all over the same green shirt that was tidy just seven minutes earlier. "Your tummy is sick?" / "Yes," he replied gravely. "I spit up my breakfast all over the car."
• 8:11am... "So where's your father?" I asked. / "He's out cleaning up my vomit from the car seat!" the three year old replied cheerfully. "It's full of Cheerios!!!"

And there you have it... the undoing of an entire morning plan in just seven minutes. My coughing, vomiting child was officially obliged to stay home from school, thanks to the "No attending school within 24 hours of fever or vomiting" rule. That said, just one hour later he seems to have boundless energy and is busy peppering me with questions and requests.

He's just sick enough to need to stay at home, but not nearly sick enough to actually rest.

Even better... now that he's home my daughter has zero interest in napping. No way, why would she nap when she could be playing with her big brother??? She laughed uproariously at the sheer absurdity of my suggestion. "MEME NO NAPPPP!!! NOOOOO NAAAAAPPPP!!!"

Here is a brief summary of our last hour then...

"Mommy! Can you fix the training wheels on my bike?"
"Mommy! I'm hungry. Can I have some pancakes? I'd like more jam."
"Mommy! I need to use the potty. Can you turn on the light for me? And the water when it is time to wash my hands?"
"Mommy! Can you show me the pictures I gave to you for Mother's Day?"
"Mommy! I built a castle! Come look at it!"
"Mommy! My sister is hitting me! Can you please come and tell her to stop?"
(Sudden screaming from an incensed two year old sister who rushes into the bathroom to yell at me - "MAMA BRUDDA HE HIT MEME!!!")
"Mommy! Can you put on my Superman cape? And can you put on my sister's princess hat? LOOK! We're Superheroes!!!"
"Mommy! Look! Here's the GUNNENBALL! I mean, the cannon ball. Don't EAT it, Sister!"
"Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! Mommy! Mommy!"

As you can see, I've been getting a lot of excellent quality content writing done...

This is the real life of a parent, and I don't think it matters one iota whether you are a stay-at-home mother or a working dad. This is the kind of life we live now ~ a life where plans and schedules are more like hopeful wishes sent into the world with the silent prayer that you *may* actually be able follow through on them.

"Lunch? Sure! We should definitely get lunch on Friday to talk about your great business idea."
(Day of lunch: "I'm so sorry, my child actually has lice today. I won't be able to make it.")

"Golf? Absolutely! I'd love to play a round with you!"
(Day of golf: "I'm so sorry but our babysitter canceled five minutes ago and my wife is out of town, do you know if the range allows small children?")

"Radiohead is coming to town? Fantastic!!! Let's splurge and get tickets! We deserve to have a little fun!"
(Facebook Status on day of Radiohead show: "Um... Does anyone want to buy two Radiohead tickets at face value? Our children have suddenly come down with the chicken pox. Bummer.")

And so it goes...

Having small children teaches you not to become too attached to any kind of plan, but just to appreciate the moment at hand.

With that in mind I'm off to help my children 'build' something with their plastic socket wrench and screwdriver kit ~ still harboring the small, secret hope that at some point today they may surprise themselves (and me!) by falling to sleep for a single hour so I can complete even a fraction of the work I'd planned.

February 26, 2011 ~ Day 79 Paging Dr. Mommy

About an hour ago my three year old started complaining about his neck. "My neck is sore, mommy!" he said, "I think my neck is too sore to take a bath."

We happened to be in the bathroom (to take the aforesaid bath) at that moment so I handily whipped out the ear thermometer from the medicine box to check for a fever. Lo and behold... nada mucho. 99.1. Nothing to write home about, at least not yet.

Still, I'm edgy. I called the nurse at our pediatrician's office - an office that is now a 25 minute drive away, but probably worth sticking with because they offer evening hours until 8pm every day, Saturday hours until 5pm AND Sunday hours during flu season. I left one of the typical cheerfully paranoid messages for which I am probably famous around their office after bringing all three of my three children to them for every major illness over the past six years:

"Hi. This is ___________. I am calling about my son ______________, whose birthdate is June ___, 2007. Our phone number is ______________. The reason I'm calling is, well, my son has just started complaining about his neck hurting, and that worries me, because my husband and I know of someone here in San Diego that died of acute bacterial meningitis about a month ago. So I just wanted to ask what the symptoms of meningitis are and what to look out for. I mean, I'm not worried or anything. But I just want to be sure to ask. So that if he gets worse, I will know what to do. Thanks. His name is ______________ and you can reach us, again, at this number _______________."

I can literally picture the nurses standing around the office answering machine laughing and rolling their eyes in a good natured way. "There she goes again!" they say, "That poor woman really needs to relax! You'd think after three children, she'd chill out a little!"

I wish I could! I wish I could just escape to a tropical island with some delicious fruity and alcoholic beverage, a great book and maybe (if he's lucky!) my husband to lay next to me on the beach. We could just lounge there under the hot sun peacefully, enjoying the sound of waves crashing on the shore and birds faintly chirping. And nothing else. Not one other sound - especially not the frantic crying and whining I am listening to at this very moment as my husband gives the evening bath.

But I can't turn my back on my kids when they are sick, or at any other time. So it comes down to figuring out what "real" sickness looks like, and sometimes that is hard to do. Sometimes it seems worse than it really is, and other times it seems a lot better than it really is.

Once when my little son was 18 months old he developed a 104 degree fever that wouldn't break for two days and I raced him tearfully to the pediatrician to discover that he had a mild case of Hand-Foot-Mouth disease (Coxsackie virus) and that there was nothing we could do for it but give him popsicles until the virus passed.

Another time we waited a week to take our daughter to the doctor when she was running a 103.5 degree fever that went down with Tylenol but wouldn't seem to break - because we thought it was just a cold or flu that would pass, and she actually turned out to have a double ear infection and pneumonia! My sons have been tested for strep throat four times. Two times they actually had it... two times, they didn't.

Basically it never seems safe to assume anything about their health, positive or negative. You'd think after six years I'd know all of the signs to look for and have all of the acetaminophin dosages memorized by heart but I ask the same questions every time, because the idea of any of my little people being seriously ill terrifies me to the point that my IQ drops about 40 points every time I place a call to the after hours nurse.

I also often wonder why it is that my children typically manage to get sick on Friday evening anywhere between 9pm and 3am, rather than at some reasonable hour like say, noon. I guess this falls under the heading of Murphy's law but I'll be darned if it doesn't seem like my personal law by now.

My theorem would look something like, "If it seems to be the worst possible moment for a child to become ill, and if neither parent slept well last night, then YES, the child will be feverish and vomiting until morning ~ when they will likely make a miraculous recovery".

A dermatologist I once met told me that he and his wife were sick for the first eight years of their children's lives but after that developed fantastic immunity and never got sick again. That gives me hope - we've still got over two years to go to show that we can match their mettle! In the interim I'm working hard to build our immune systems with healthy food, and my family gets good sleep and good exercise but I can't claim to do either of the latter myself.

The telephone has yet to ring with a call from our nurse, but I think I'm off the hook for tonight. After being too sore to take a bath, my little son ate a large dinner and then told me that his neck was feeling much better and he thought it had just been "hungry". No fever combined with a healthy appetite and no other pains leads me to believe that maybe he just strained his neck somehow, possibly when he was riding his bike earlier in the afternoon.

According to Dr. Mommy, odds are 99% he's going to be just fine.
RX: Two hugs and three kisses and a lively bedtime story.

I'm still ready for that tropical vacation though. And as long as I'm dreaming, I'm going to throw in a beachside masseuse and a really sumptuous all day meal with lots of gorgeous courses and plenty of dessert, just for me. No-one ever gets a tummyache in paradise, right?