Sickies

Here I was, on the verge of the greatest announcement of the year (and no, it doesn't have anything to do with new babies), and it all went crumbling under.
I was so proud, so elated, so relieved that this entire winter our entire family survived without getting sick even once.
And then my husband had to go and ruin it for me.
How he came about the nasty cold that he has is a mystery to me. After all, I am the one who works in a hospital, and have been surrounded with kids sick with every bug under the sun since December. He, on the other hand, works in an office with roughly 10 other people, none of whom, to my knowledge, are under contact or airborne precautions. And yet he is the one sounding like an 80 year old elephant with a defective trunk.
It never seizes to amaze me how even slightest presence of an illness kicks your whole life right out of its equilibrium. There is just that feeling that something is not right, the house is messier (and not just because it is littered with tissues), everyone is in need of a shower, a hug, and a cup of something steamy.
Even though I still don't have the symptoms, and Joseph has only exhibited a mild variation of what his daddy has, it is as if the entire house, walls and kitchen cabinets included, is suffering.
I don't like this feeling.
We are trying to power through the runny noses and coughing, employing everything from nose drops to throat syrups, from teas to honeys, which are all excellent helpers with just one major drawback: they taste nothing like bacon or green chile, and thus have to be mostly forced on our daddy and husband.
I hope it passes soon, so we could return to normal sequence of sleeping and waking hours, venture outside on some big or small adventure, and get the stench of dayquil out of our clothes.
Meanwhile, I am off to make some tea and cozy up under a blanket with my sickies.
Don't sneeze, everyone.

Busy

On Tuesday night I came home, swallowed cold dinner, and climbed under covers with my pajama'd little man who was sprawled across the bed, his blanket kicked off to form a mountain at his feet. He slightly moved in his sleep, barely startled by my intrusion, and as I slightly kissed his forehead, almost inaudible "choo-choo" (yes, we are in the train phase) escaped from his mouth.
I hadn't seen my son for two days. Or, to be more precise, I had only seen him asleep, in the morning when I left and at night when I came back. I had to patch together his days from phone conversations with other people as he laughed / screamed / cried in the background.
I have been busy.
There will be many more days like these in the weeks and months to come, and while I have made this choice consciously, there are still moments where I second-guess myself, there are still days when I wonder what I could do so he remembered me being there, not me being away.
As I have mentioned a while back, it seems to me sometimes that parenting is a lesson in learning to let go. It wasn't until recently, however, that I realized, it goes both ways.
As I watch him wave good-bye and blow me kisses instead of crying and hugging my ankles as I head out of the door, I understand that learning to let go is one of the many lessons I teach him. Why is it that holding on is something we all do well, but letting go is a skill we struggle to acquire?
I want to believe that I am never away. A part of me is always there with my son, just like he is always there with me throughout the day, only a heartbeat away, no matter how far.