Summer Sickness

Achoo...excuse me - must be my summer cold - ARGH! I hate getting sick in the summer time. Worse, I completely dislike having a sick child no matter what time of the year it is. I feel so bad for my little man. He's got a doozy, too. Coughing, sneezing, runny nose, achy body. He's really whiney and I can't say that I blame him! It sucks. Unfortunately I don't think I'm a very good nursemaid. I get exasperated with sick people. I know he's just a baby but I still have a hard time being patient with him. I have to verbally remind myself (after heaving a large sigh) that "he's just a baby...he doesn't feel well...he needs to know he's ok and that mommy is here." Of course, once I'm in his bedroom rubbing his back and looking down at his sweet little face I really do feel badly for him. I'm just not the most patient person in the world. Not to mention my sad tendency towards selfishness that unfortunately did not go away with the birth of my children.

I think one advantage of having kids at a younger age would have to be the ability to be more flexible. When one waits too long one tends to be more set in one's ways. At least that's how I feel. It's difficult thinking of other people's needs and trying to be considerate when one's natural tendency is in the opposite direction! Ha ha ha! Oh, I'm really not that bad. Maybe I'm being a little self-deprecating. At least I can admit my selfish feelings! I know that most mom's feel this way at some point. We just don't usually like to admit it - ever.

In anycase, being sick in the summer time sucks bog water. Talk about not having patience with others - I barely have patience with myself when I'm sick. I don't want to be bothered. I try to pretend, for as long as possible, that I'm really not sick in the hopes I'll end up, well, not being sick. Silly, huh. So here I sit, coughing, with a stuffed up and runny nose, scratchy throat and chest congestion. *heaving sigh* I think I have to stop pretending now.

In other news, I've started hubby's Christmas present. So far, no errors - knock on wood. I'm almost through one skein of yarn with about 10 more to go. I really love the color and I think it will look terrific on him. It will be big enough and long enough for him to wear a couple shirts under. He's always cold so this should work out well. Somewhere along the way, I'll have to start on my MIL's socks. I briefly entertained the thought of having them done for her birthday on the 21st but since I'm doing so well on hubby's present I'll have to wait to start her's later. No one likes getting socks in the summertime anyway, right?

I'm still reading a lot. I'm in the middle of a debut mystery novel called Poison Pen by Sheila Lowe. Interesting concept. The heroine is a forensic handwriting analyst. Not a bad story, either. It was a little stiff at first but has smoothed into a decently written mystery.

Hubby and I are seriously debating putting LD in part time day care for the summer. It would be Tues and Thurs mornings from 8am to 11:30am. I think it would be a good idea for him to become a little more socially aware. Right now he has no interest in playing with anyone else and has no concept of sharing or playing nicely. An old high school friend runs the day care. She's been a teacher for about 20 yrs and is now doing this preschool program. In the summer she does little tots. Anyway she charges $36 a week for it and we are really considering it. I think we'll give her a call this week and see if she can take him starting the 8th. I couldn't think of a better person to take him to. I'll probably be a worry wort the first few times, in fact, I know I'll have a hard time. At first, I won't know what to do with myself. Wow, three hours to myself...what do I do?

Speaking of that...I have some good ideas of what to do with my time! There's a lot of painting to do around the house. The kitchen needs to be done, the ceilings need freshening, and my dad's homemade doodads need to be touched up. Then he can put them out to sell. Also, I can take my bike out for a solo ride every now and then.

Well, my little man is up and coughing again. Need to make sure he's ok and give him his afternoon medicine.

Ciao y'all and happy knitting!

3rd Anniversary

It's hard to imagine that three years ago today we lost our first son, Owen. The weather we're having outside matches my mood, too. It's off and on sunny, rainy and stormy. We just had a huge thunder boomer and concurrent downpour. It lasted all of five minutes. Now the sun is trying to peep out again. Three years ago when we emerged from the hospital, all I could think about was how something so horrific could happen on such a beautiful day. What right did the flowers have to bloom or the trees to sprout leaves. How could it be such a gloriously warm, bright and sunny day? At the time, I was stunned, numb and exhausted. We had just held our son in our arms as he died, never having heard his little voice. A fleeting thought crossed my overwhelmingly sad mind, "was God mocking me?" I felt like I was looking at the world from the outside in. I watched myself walk with my family up to our meager little room in the hospital apartments on Beacon Hill to gather our things.

For 40 days hubby and I had to sleep in separate beds because there were no rooms available with anything else. So we pushed the twins together so we could at least hold hands at night. We would fall into our beds around 11pm or so after we had visited NICU and get up again around 7am again to be back in NICU for the next shift change. We were there in the morning, then left for a while, had lunch, were back around 1 or 2pm, stayed for a while, read to Owen, then left for a while, had dinner out somewhere - maybe wandered around Boston for a while, then came back to NICU to check on things, kiss O and say good night. Of course, I was pumping then. So I had to schedule getting up to pump milk and store it, all with the hopes that we would be bringing it along with Owen back home. In the end, the milk got donated to a milk bank and our ride home was as empty as the baby's car seat in the back. My poor father had to sit next to it for 2+ hrs on the ride back to Maine.

Maybe it's not anxiety that tightens my chest at night - it's quite possible and very likely it's still grief. Why in the last two anniversary's I haven't felt like this, I don't know. It's not supposed to happen this way. We never had the happy ending you see on TV. There was no miracle cure, no instant anti-biotic that stopped his infection. He just died. And I think I turned myself off after that for a long time.

My wish and prayer for all of you is that you never experience that kind of tragedy in your lifetimes. Hold your children close and thank God you have them and they are safe and happy in your arms. I know I always try to sneak in extra hugs and kisses to LD whenever I can.