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I’m not even officially “back to school” yet and…

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Joshua is already sick!

FOUR DAYS at daycare and he’s already running a fever.

::sigh::

The mom-guilt is high with this one, y’all.

Today was insane.  Like there’s a million things to do and freshmen parents to greet and calendars to finish and desks to arrange and copies to be made and and and and NO TIME overdrive insane.

I greeted scared freshmen and their parents and helped answer scheduling questions and talked about school supplies and showed a bus stop list and did it all while standing up, so my feet are killing me. I’m totally out of “standing on your feet all day” shape (and regular ol’ shape, too, unless that shape happens to be “blob-ish” or “round” or “clothes-don’t-fit fat.”)

And then I went and talked money with the band director (I HATE MONEY!!! [not really. Give me money, people. I love shoes.]) and then I got called to go eat lunch with the department (YAY FOOD!) and then it was off to a faculty meeting that lasted for an hour and a half.

And then it was “Oh, you know? Perhaps you should put something on your bulletin board before Monday, Miranda. It’s looking a little…ugly…in here.”

WTF, ME??  When did you think we had time for aesthetics??

So, I slapped a bulletin board together (and tomorrow I’m making a curtain! AND I have to go to the Cheerleading Rules Clinic tomorrow morning!) and sat down to breathe and I got a phone call.

It was Ms. E.  And Joshua was running a fever of 102.

102!!

::double sigh::

So I shut down my computers and flew over there (in my car…my cape is broken.) to pick him up and when I went in, he was laying in Ms. E’s lap in the rocking chair drinking his juice.  When I came in, he barely lifted his head to look at me.

Eventually he perked up a little bit and she said he’d been fine all day and his only symptom was lethargy and the fever.  And neither of those things came on until after his nap.

So I grabbed him up and he was just all limp noodle in my arms and he put his head down with his face in the bend of my neck and he stayed there and played with my necklace.  He didn’t make a sound on the way home.  Not a single peep.

And when we got home I sat down on the couch and sat him down next to me and he just rolled over onto his belly with his butt in the air and looked like he was going to go to sleep.  And I would’ve laid there on the couch with him all night if that’s how he’d slept, you know?  Poor guy.

But he didn’t.  He sat up and perked up and seemed happy so we gave him a couple bites of fruit and some goldfish.

And he vomited it all up IN MY HANDS.

We were sitting on the couch after he ate “dinner” and I saw him make the gag face and knew it was coming, so I cupped my hands (instead of grabbing the bowl of goldfish between his legs because that just didn’t seem logical at all) and I caught it. All of it. Awesome.

(Not Awesome.)

Here’s the thing about being a mom that I never thought would happen.

When my child vomits, I don’t gag.

That used to be my go-to reaction when I was near vomit.  I gagged and dry-heaved.

Not when it’s Joshua’s vomit.  My Mom-ness takes over and I go on auto-pilot.  In that moment, my child is sick and it’s not even remotely a little bit about me.  It’s all about him.  That’s a pretty cool Mom-gift, if you ask me.

I feel so horrible for him, you know?  He can’t tell me what’s wrong and where he hurts, or if he hurts or if his tummy just feels bad.  I just know he needs me, which, I suppose, is all I really NEED to know.

When I picked him up off of the changing table after his bath, he immediately put his head down on my shoulder. And when I grabbed his blanket he immediately started pulling it up around his face.  That alone tells me he does not feel good. 

We put him to bed tonight without any milk and he went down without a fuss and hasn’t made a sound.

MY POOR BABY IS SICK, Y’ALL.

And there is no way possible for me to take off to be home with him if he’s not over this by Monday.  And that kills me. 

It’s one of those things where I just can’t help but feel like if I hadn’t had to go back to work this week, he wouldn’t be feeling so horrible right now.  He would be happy and healthy just by virtue of being home with me.

But logically, realistically, I know that isn’t true.  I mean, he was just sick a few weeks ago and he’s been home with me all summer.

Knowing this doesn’t mean I’m not going to continue to feel bad about it all.  It’s just one of those internal conflicts that I’ll probably never resolve.

I hope he feels better tomorrow. And if he doesn’t, I’ve got plans to hold him all day. Copies be damned.  My baby needs me.

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