I had one of these moments the other day. The Quiet Contemplator woke up in the middle of the night with a really high fever. Now, I am no fever alarmist. I have a kid in daycare. Fevers happen at our house about six times a week. I take all kiddie illnesses in stride. But this one was different. I don't know why, but it caused the mommy hairs on the back of my neck to stand up and yell, "Danger, Will Robinson!" It scared the shit out of me. I actually prayed to God to keep my baby alive.
By the time the sun rose, her fever was gone and she was all unicorns and jelly beans again. But I was not. I felt like I had been through the ringer. Even though she was fine in the long run, I had seen my baby's life flash before my eyes and had lost a few years off mine in the process. I was changed. Yet again. A new layer had formed on my skin, added by my intense love for my child. A layer that made me strong by making me weak. A layer that might add a few wrinkles to my outside, but will also add a new level to my inside.
Oh, sweet girl of mine. What you do to your mommy just by simply being alive.
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| You too, Bubba. |
And how. I have a 6 month old and I'm amazed at what that little stinker has done to me. We haven't had too many scares, though as a new parent, any new illness has me up all night watching him just to be sure. I'm terrible about worst case scenarios and emotionally I have a feeling this kid is going to take years off my life simply because I've never loved anyone so much. Being a mom is awesome. :p
ReplyDeleteAin't that the truth.I find myself constantly worried we haven't made the right choice in some key area. but so is the live of a parent.
ReplyDeletewe spent one night in NICU after having taken our baby home, it was the worst night of my life. I remember knowing then, I was really a mom, and praying God would keep my son alive and that if this could pretty please be the worst thing to happen in his life. he was fine and we were discharged the next day, but I'll never be the same.
It is these moments that make us. Not just parents, but human beings.
DeleteSo glad they're ok. And those are the cutest pictures ever! The boy just climbed over here and said, "Aw! Who are these babies?"
ReplyDeleteP.S. Is CC eating his blanket?
And by "they're" I mean "she's." Sorry, only halfway through my first coffee...
DeleteHe is eating his blanket, That is how he sleeps. When you pull it out, it is like one of those magic tricks where the hankie just keeps coming, and coming, and coming...
DeleteYou are so right on about how it feels when your child is sick with a fever. When my son embarked on a serious health issue a couple of years back, it was the scariest thing ever. It does take a couple of years off of your life. I'm so glad The Quiet Contemplator is better. Your munchkins are adorable.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Mod Mom. Glad your son is ok too!
DeleteEvery nighttime cough about sends me over the edge after Sass Mokey's no less than 3 run ins with croup... I feel yah....
ReplyDeleteCroup blows!
DeleteI can't believe how having my little girl has changed my perspective on, well, everything. I have a difficult time reading books or watching movies where bad things happen to kids now, because I always envision how I would feel if that was happening to her. Being a parent makes you strong and so vulnerable at the same time. Thank goodness, in her two years on this earth, she has been mostly healthy, because I don't know if I could handle it if she were to get seriously sick or hurt!
ReplyDeleteI can't handle bad stuff happening to kids. It kills me. I literally feel every child's pain that has something bad happen. This is why I stopped watching the news!
DeleteI am convinced that the world is not only designed to wrench my sweet son away from me but is CONSPIRING to, so I lay awake worrying about keeping him safe.
ReplyDeleteThe pressure is much.
so is the vodka.
(your bubbas are adorable - ohhh they are!)
Yoda momming:
DeleteThe pressure is much.
so is the vodka.
Love it!
It's a little incongruous to be thinking of this particular incident because of this post, but either way, I will never forget this night: I was about six months pregnant with our first. I was reading "Gone Baby Gone" by Denis Lehane. After reading a particularly grueling part of the book in which a child was tortured, in more ways than one, for weeks and then murdered in a filthy bathtub, I looked at my husband and told him that if anybody ever tortured, molested, and/or murdered my [then unborn] child, all bets would be off and I would go straight up HOMICIDAL on their ass. Like, crazy, mind-has-broken, I'm going to torture the fuck out of you and kill you slowly HOMICIDAL. And that's not rhetoric or hyperbole, it's honest-to-God truth, matter of fucking fact. Reading that horror, feeling that rage, that's when I knew that I had it; that mom-up ability, that FERAL ANIMAL mom instinct.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad TQC made it out okay. Fevers are no joke.
Wow. I will put that one list of books to NEVER EVER READ IN MY LIFE!
DeleteWhen the boy was 5 months, he had to have surgery. 16 hours later, he developed cellulitis, but the doctor kept putting me off because the "bad" infections took 48-72 hours to develop. When I finally snapped on his pompous self and demanded he see my kid, he sighed and told me to meet him at the hospital. I will never forget his face when he saw the raw, shiny, stretched skin that was the boy's abdomen. You could see the "oh, shit" alarm going off in his head...as in oh-shit-she-was-right-and-now-they're-gonna-sue-me.
ReplyDeleteGood job, mama!
DeleteRight!???
ReplyDelete[insert me repeating exactly what every other mom above has said here].
I just wrote a post on this sort of thing, too... sometimes the potential for loss haunts me more than other times, but it is always there to some degree or another. Lately it's been worse. It seems that it's just a truism of life, though, that you can't have something wonderful unless there is also something really sucky involved. What's the deal with that??
I don't watch the news, either!
I didn't have it hit too close to home this year, I had it hit home. Living in fear doesn't help. Living in spite of the fear does. None of us are untouchable, we all just have to live like we are until we aren't anymore.
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