all's well, or as well as it can be...

Going to bed last night, I was telling the boy to quit stuffing his knees into my stomach, I had ate too much Cheesy Enchilada Hamburger Helper and I was going to throw it up if he kept pummeling my abdomen. I jinxed myself.

I was floating on that half-awake, half-asleep plain when I heard him start to sniffle and whine in his bed. I let it go thinking that the sore throat and slight fever he had were bothering him. And it got louder. I told him to come to my bed and I got no response. I knew something was wrong when he didn't catapult directly from the end of his bed, across the hallway to my own. I got up and went to him. Yep, I had surely jinxed myself and the victim was (is) his brand new cowboy comforter that will be sadly, retiring to the dumpster as soon as I get my ass in gear and takes it's double-bagged self out.
*On a side note: I really am not one to just toss a brand new comforter out the door just because of a little puke. First off, it wasn't just a little and secondly, the damn thing sends my washer into fits and the one and only time I washed it, I spent an hour hand-sewing the rip that occurred and 45 minutes mopping up the laundry room floor.

Then he started acting strange. He was telling me about babies in the yard and airplanes and stuff. And he couldn't sleep, but he couldn't stay awake. Any of you who have children know that when they are puking (unless they are like some I know and get so strung out on adrenaline from the mere thought of vomiting that not only do they not sleep, neither does anyone within a 2 block radius) there is some sleep between bouts. Ty, he just dies in between bouts of bathroom visitations. Die, as in a bomb could go off in the hall and the boy wouldn't wiggle. But last night, he just couldn't get it done, but he couldn't stay fully awake, either. And then he told me that his neck hurt and at 1:30 in the morning, all my natural panic started to set in and I had to keep talking myself down. 'No, Lori, he doesn't have meningitis. No, he didn't find wild mushrooms, poison, drugs or all of the above and ingest them. It is just some stomach bug, he'll be fine'. I seriously had to stop myself from calling Merce, bawling after I had asked him for the 500th time just exactly how his neck hurt and he told me 'It hurts like I laid for too long with my head that way. It's not that bad. Does that make you feel better?'

God, am I going to be one of those old crones whose children are constantly having to reassure their dottering, maniacal parents that they are OK? Those poor children whose own problems get shoved aside in order to make room for the neurosis of the parent. The poor babies that have to grow up too fast because mom's got a psychological issue. I hope not.

Anyway, after I gathered my wits about me and quit crying for making him worried about the state I was in, I snuggled up to him and held him gentle in my arms while I crooned (off-key and slightly wobbly) into his ear so that he wouldn't be afraid of what was coming. And when my back and hips started hurting from lying on the floor (no, I am NOT letting a puking kid into my nest of a bed!), I got up and laid on the couch and pulled him close enough to rub his back and we slept. Until the next round and when he refused to leave the bathroom, I made us both a bed on the floor and subjected myself to the cold, hard reality of trying to sleep on the bathroom floor while I had both arms around him, so no, in answer to my own question: I don't think I'll turn out to be one of those people whose children end up having to raise their own parents. Constantly shoving their own discomforts to the side so that there is room for their mother (or father) and their hysteria.

Go, me!!

And, I talked to the daycare lady and three of her kids were up all night, as well. All's well that ends well...