I am feeling like a terrible mother today. It is Wednesday, newsletter day, it is also the sixth, memo day (ie state-of-the-union email for my team). Normally this is great! Wednesday is Dane’s late day. Where he has both extra German and sport after school. It means I have a long day to really knock out work, in peace, no interruptions. I do some of my best thinking on Wednesdays.
Last night Dane went to bed early, of his own accord. I was pretty happy, the timing for me was perfect. I had a couple of things to knock out with my Site Designer over Skype before the memo went out today, and it was late day for Tess & Cole & Dave. I was home alone, minus a sleeping Dane, till almost 21:00. Then…
Then I went up to bed. Dane had crawled into my bed, he hates to feel alone, apparently my bed makes him feel less alone. Never mind that I was right downstairs. I gave a selfish sigh, at almost-9 he is so heavy to pick up and move to his own bed. And at almost-9 he is too big to just leave and get a good nights rest with three of us in the same bed. Then I started to pick him up. And my heart broke a little, my mommy guilt kicked in. I should’ve known. I should’ve known when my active, energetic, rambunctious almost-9-year-old put himself to bed at a way too early hour. Dane was burning up.
Dane was sick. It was the end of Day Two of back-to-school after Easter Break and Dane is sick. I got him up, checked him all over, his head was throbbing with pain. I got him to drink some liquids, take some tylenol, and managed to get the fever down a little. Back to bed he went, his bed, and to my bed I finally went. Rinse & repeat three times during the night.
He finally got up at about 10:00 this morning. A little wobbly, a lot hot, and definitely not 100%. Even my bed, right upstairs, was too far away. He really doesn’t like to be alone. Now he is bundled up in the living room, on his favorite chair, with his favorite juice by his side, the tv in front of him and both his kindle and my kindle on his lap. I have given him every comfort I can think of while I sit in my office, a whole room away, and work.
On top of all that, I asked him to pose for a picture. My mommy guilt is going full blast.
Dane in his command center
Wow, he does *not* look impressed! LOL Poor baby. I sure don’t miss those days of little kids getting sick. Although in some ways it’s harder after they’re grown-ups because you still want to make everything better, but you can’t fix all their grown-up problems. Mommy guilt never really goes away. *Sigh*. And don’t even get me started on grandkids! Ha!
Oh! poor lamb, he looks so poorly, I hope he feels better soon.
I remember sending my son to school in temperatures of 45C while living in Saudi Arabia, he didn’t like school so was always making excuses. I was called by his teacher to tell me he was sick, when I got to him he had a temperature of 40.5C and in the heat and a 30 minute drive home with no air conditioning, he was getting worse! turned out he had chicken pox. Another twist a friend of ours called and caught it and was so ill he had photographs of his pox marks for the medical library!!!!!
Guilt still with me 33 years later.