Sick and Tired
Read about being a mother of 12 as our resident 'Supermom'
shares her wise parenting advice.
I think that it's safe to say that I have much experience with childhood illness, seeing as I'm the mother of 12 children. No matter how many times I
see flushed cheeks or hear a child's cry of illness in the night, I never stop
feeling distressed at the sight or sound of a sick child. Logic has no hold on
my imagination as I envisage the worst possible scenario.
I rush about making tea and giving sponge baths. I make charts relating
to medication and spiking fevers and I lay my ear on little chests to see if I can
hear a wheeze. I plump up pillows and read 5 books one after the other. No
wonder my kids LIKE to be sick. In fact, it's clear that Mom is the one who
suffers most.
A neat trick
That has become a bit of a problem as some of my school aged kids have
learned a neat trick to get my attention. It's called: PLAYING SICK.
If there's no fever, you don't stay home.
How is a mother supposed to distinguish between the actual and the
probably not? I have found that there's no way to trick a digital thermometer
by holding it near a light bulb or under running hot water. So, I've learned to
impose the rule: If there's no fever, you don't stay home.
The rule poses more of a problem for me than for my kids. You see, they
may not have a fever, but I'm still concerned that they really ARE ill, or at
least, coming down with something dire, and I feel guilty as I shoo them out
the door. But, guilt IS a mother's province, right?
I am picturing my child slumped over his
desk in a coma.
So, yes, I send them off to the school bus, but with my brain in a tizzy
imagining the ambulance that will arrive at the school midmorning to take my
child off to the ER, with some nameless, dreadful plague. I find myself trying
to enjoy my second cup of coffee while attending to my correspondence and find
that my foot is tapping a nervous beat and my mind has wandered far from the
letter to my dear old Aunt Matilda. I am picturing my child slumped over his
desk in a coma.
The clock ticks so slow today and I am laying in wait by the door when
he gets home from school. I get a glimpse of a freckled grin as he calls out,
hale and hearty, "Hey Mom. What's for lunch?"
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