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Thursday, May 19, 2005
the best-laid plans, part, what, five bazillion?
This is what I get for planning (and announcing my plans) to be in bed before eleven:
- T needing me to alter a picture of a vehicle he'd found online, so that he could print it out and use it as a template for designs for the paintball tank he's been wanting to make for years
- My decision, while I was up and at the computer anyway, to check on some journals for a few minutes.
- You don't need to know the third thing, but it takes more than a few minutes.
- then, juuust as I was drifting off to sleep at midnight, along comes LT, saying that he feels "funny" and "shivery" and that he thinks he needs to go outside for fresh air.
- a cuddle with my boy in the porch swing in the moonlight, both of us tucked into one of T's flannel jackets
- several attempts at going to sleep, only to have LT start feeling "shivery" again just as he's about to drift off
- mounting anxiety about this whole "shivery" thing, covered by a thick veneer of nonchalance, because dang, the boy's anxious enough without Mom spazzing out
- a journal entry and a photo posted at 2 a.m., with my nine-year-old reading his Hardy Boys book in the recliner, in the hopes that he'll get so tired he'll just fall asleep without trying
I really am unsure about what's going on with him. He has what we think is Tourette's Syndrome, coupled with more-than-normal anxiety at times, so we've seen a lot of stuff and learned to take new developments pretty much in stride, after an initial period of freaking out as quietly as possible adjusting. Part of me says this is just related to having had some sugar or some caffeine, or maybe it's just that tight-chested feeling everyone gets sometimes. Another part of me wonders how strangely the staff would look at me if we took a little drive over to the emergency room (that part is easily shut up with a reminder of the uselessness of the below-mediocre hospital in our town). And there's the whole rest of me in between, swinging from "maybe we'll go to the pediatrician tomorrow" to "let's look things up on the internet all night and see if we can scare the daylights out of ourselves" (sometimes my inner voice speaks to itself in the plural. So sue me).
In a way, this is nice. I don't get much alone time with either of the kids, so I take it when I can get it and am glad about that aspect of such situations, anyway. In another way, I'm scared senseless. Motherhood is just full of this kind of confusion; it's one of those things nobody ever tells you about when they warn you about never sleeping again and having no time to yourself for years.
Comments
Uh-oh, I hope LT is ok. Let us know what ended up happening. Poor kid, all shivery in the middle of the night.
Oh yeah, and a TANK? *insert pacificist rant here*. Ha, just kidding. Couldn't resist. ;)
Posted by: mary at May 19, 2005 05:14 AM
I hope LT's chills have gone away, never to return!
You're totally right about the "they never tell you". Every now and then (usually when I'm reading an entry like this one), I realize how many times my mother must have been terrified over her children's health. Each sniffle and upset stomach has to be dealt with, and it's usually the mom that gets the job-- and a lot of the worry, too.
When you're giving LT an extra cuddle to make up for the hard night, don't forget to give yourself a little reward, too, because it's not easy being the mom!
Posted by: Michael at May 20, 2005 05:03 AM
