Only a Mother Could Understand

So last night Julia was to spend the night at my sister's house, while my husband and I went out to celebrate his birthday (which is today). Although Julia had broken the fever, the virus seemed to have moved to her stomach. So we decided to keep her home and just stick with our usual Saturday plan. Most Saturdays we attend 4:30 mass with my sister's family. Afterward we eat out. Often times, we'll try a somewhere different, usually downtown Detroit.  This is really a win win win. We attend mass, enjoy a big family dinner and the adults feel current as we are selecting from a variety of restaurants from offbeat to trendy. 

As each painful stomach episode occurred throughout the day, I vacillated between sending Bobby to mass without us or putting an extra pair of underpants in a zip sealed baggie and venturing out. I chose the latter. We positioned ourselves at the end of the pew so we could quickly and discretely get to the bathroom if need be. We made it up until the responsorial psalm when she whispered that she needed to go.  It was a false alarm, and we made it back in time for the gospel. The remainder of mass was uneventful.

As plans for dinner started to take form a small voice said, maybe this isn't the best idea. Not only did I not heed this voice, but I also agreed to leave our car in the church parking lot and jump in with my sister's family. And if that weren't enough I suggested a new place.  It is called Vince's. It is on Springwell near I75. It's old school Italian. The parking lot is fenced in and located in the back, where the only entrance to the restaurant exists. I was told it was  set up that way intentionally. Although it opened long after the days of the speakeasy, there were still plenty of extra curricular activities going on inside. They set a look out guy at the entrance to the lot. When the police pulled up it allowed them just enough time to relay a message inside and clean everything up before the police could enter through that one door.


So we get there and it is everything I expect. We had barely decided on which wine to order, when Julia climbed into my lap and announced that her stomach was hurting badly. I quickly look at the menu and leave Bobby our order requests. Off we go back into the bathroom. After a minute of papering the seat, while she is moaning and pouting, I drop her drawers and hoist her up. I am holding her under her armpits while squatting in front of her. In a public bathroom this is enough to set a germaphobe like me into a tailspin. She passes gas and begins to cry. At first it is quiet and weak, but it is building quickly. I am shushing, but to no avail. Her face is buried in my hair, the wailing stops only briefly while I hear her begin to choke. I believe she breathed in a mouthful of my hair. Have I mentioned that she has a serious gag reflex? The coughing has turned to choking with intermittent hysterical crying (I am sure that protective services will bust in at any moment), all the while stuff is coming out of her other end. With my grip under her arms still tight, I go from my squat to an on my toes full body arch to avoid the saliva that is pouring out of her mouth and the mucus bubbling out of her nose. I am watching it drip onto her very chic cowboy boots. In an instant, everything ceases. It is dead silent. I wipe down her face, blow her nose and wipe her bottom. We zip, button and wipe off her boots. I look up from her boots and her sweet defeated face is looking down at me and my love for her at that moment is tremendous. She says, "I feel all better now." We wash our hands, wipe her face with damp paper towels and exit the bathroom. Although we were gone for 15 minutes no one is any the wiser (the bathroom was a room away from where the family was sitting, so no one even heard her cry). Thankfully the wine has arrived in my absence. I down the glass and on we go.


Dinner was outstanding, and we arrived home with unused panties in the same zip sealed bag secure in my purse. 

The Patient

Julia has been sick for the last two days. yesterday she was her father's ward. She loved every minute of it. He stopped her at Burger King after a visit to the doctor. And they ate inside, something boring old mom would never do. She is weak, happy to rest and not at all herself. Today was my day home with her. I have been at her beck and call all day. I made her scrambled eggs and toast for breakfast. Afterward she wanted to rest. I said, "Let's set you up in the family room." She liked this idea.  At school she read a book at school about a sick child who laid in bed all day reading comics, eating crackers and popsicles. After a quick trip to the  grocery (because who has popsicles in February), I had everything we needed. She immediately began gathering things for her recovery room. Here is a list, in no paticular order: a bed pillow; a fleece blanket; crackers; a stack of books (including comics which her doting cousins dropped off for her); a small holy family relic she received as a favor at a baptism we were at on Sunday (she can be such an old lady Arab); a box of Valentine chocolates and a Snoopy doll in a doctor getup. She reminded me of the scene in The Jerk where Steve Martin is gathering up random items and claiming them to be among his most treasured possessions. I went down to the basement wiped down and grabbed a small stacking/folding table for all of her hoot. With popsicle in hand, she happily laid in her nest reading "comic books" and nibbling on crackers.

I mentioned this with a friend who recalled her own experience. She told me, "I love the sick bed supplies!! Those are some of my favorite childhood memories! With a fever/vomiting, we were made a bed in the couch in the living room. Poached egg on toast that had been softened with some of the water that cooked the egg. Small sips of Vernor's and my mother's close attention. I enjoyed it so much, I recall a time trying to keep the fever going by holding the thermometer to a lamp bulb!!"

It's funny how one memory can trigger another. It made me think of sleepovers at my great aunts Eleanor and Julia's house. Those nights and the mornings that followed were pure magic for my sister and I. We adored them. Poached eggs were always a breakfast staple. Love, love, love them. My aunts had this neat little poacher with six perfect little cups that make six perfectly poached eggs. They are without a doubt one of my favorite eggs. Modern cooking has long since abandoned the poacher and most cooks simply drop the egg into water. As simple as it appears to be I have always been slightly intimidated by this. Saturday morning's breakfast will include poached eggs.

Hopefully my patient will be back to her old self by then and ready to try.

What the H?

I was completely engrossed in a story I was reading on the laptop. Julia walks up behind me and says, "What the H is that?" I am thinking, what in the world did my sister teach her now. I turn back to her and in a sweet, soft voice, say, "Excuse me?" "What the H, mommy? What's that big H?" Her index finger leads me to the address bar. There is a great big H there. It is the icon for the Huffington Post.

Phew!

Whatever

Julia and I were in the midst of a heavy back and forth that, truth be told, I was losing.  I decided to put an end to it with an authoritative directive. "You need to [blah, blah, blah]," I began. She looked me dead in the eye and replied, "Whatever." With my blood boiling, I told her to go and sit in the corner and we would talk about it in four and one half minutes. She sits one minute for each year of life. Since she's so insistent about putting that, "And a half," on the end,  I will hold her to it.

As the time expired, she returned from the corner with the posture of boiled shrimp. She sat in my lap. I did not even have time to launch into my, why did I ask you to sit in the corner, what are some other choices that you had, what will you do next time, etc. She raised her pathetic little face up to mine. "Mommy you really hurt my feelings. You interrupted me before I could finish. I was going to say, 'Whatever you say, mommy.'" 

Seriously, how do you even recover from that. Imagine what kind of reply she will be able to come up with after five minutes.

Whatever!

The World Needs More Leaders

Approximately once a month, each child in Julia's class has an opportunity to be the "special person." On that day they bring in a special show and tell item, they lead morning calendar and they are the line leader for the entire school day. In the world of preschool, it's quite a big deal.

One of the things Julia continues to struggle with is walking in line. It is not that she cannot walk straight in line. Nor is it that she talks while walking in line. Her greatest offense, according to the teacher, is that she allows a large gap to fall between herself and the person in front of her. Although I have been teaching for quite a while, I am embarrassed  to say that I needed her teacher to spell it out for me. "You see," she told me, "With the large gap it's like there a whole new line. This allows Julia to be the line leader of all the children behind her."

I mentioned it to a friend who replied, "What's wrong with that; the world needs more leaders."