030307 - Parental Bootcamp

So, fellow Mamas, it's been quite a week. Little A has been ill with what I can only describe as the most accurate interpretation of the Exorcist that I have ever had the priviledge to witness.

I am crippled, often and heavily, by the fact that I am in science. As a child and well into adulthood, I imagined that I would become a surgeon and so groomed myself in such a way that I would make a good one. Well, life seldom does what one wants it to do, and I am, currently, not a surgeon. I will soon be a doctor, but one of microbiology and cell and molecular biology, meaning, I am NOT a physician. I have enough information to be terrified of MRSA and know the shape and preferred environment of the bug that has infected my boy and to diagnose my progeny, but not enough to treat him.

Okay.

Monday: Aidan's school calls and informs me that he is a little under the weather, has a temperature of 101.2 and is not eating very well. Well, babies get fevers...and I'm not so worried so I pick him up a tiny bit early and head home. Once there, we play and goof around and have a little dinner. Which he promptly up-chucks all over me and I stupidly attempt to catch in one hand. Big A is a little baffled at such a display and so after I yell at him, goes to get towels to be rid of the muck. I assume that this is just a 24 hour bug and will now be over. I am so so very wrong.

Tuesday: Morning. I figure things are getting better. Off we go to school. I attempt work only to be called by Aidan's school with the news that his diapers are exploding with a volume of liquid usually reserved for lakes and swimming pools. I leave early and take him home. He poops, vomits, laughs, plays, poops, eats, drinks. All is well. I am in control. He teaches with me on Tuesday night...my students are all "OHHHH...he's so sweet, I want a baby, I need a baby...blah blah." I explain that there are any number of reasons that babies and college are an impractical combination. They nod and ignore me as usual. We make it through the day. I call Andy, who is out of town working, to explain that I am beginning to be worried. He comforts me and tells me he'll be home soon. I adore him.

Wednesday... the world falls into pure chaos. I take Aidan into school, hoping to be able to make it through my seminar because I've missed every obligation so far this week. School calls, exploding diapers...world is ending. Lakes of poop. I pick up the child, who, much to my dismay is in some sort of baby isolation in the school office, playing with his favorite teacher. I am so so ashamed that I have my poor, sick child out of the house. I've abandoned him to WORK of all things...I hang my head and go home, knowing that this cannot be good.

Thursday. I've let Aidan sleep in a t-shirt, on towels, so that when the diaper explodes, and it will, I won't be juggling poop-filled jammies in the middle of the night...I get poop on myself at his 3 a.m. insistent cry...I change him, comfort him, delirious now from sheer lack of sleep due to worry, I am sure that I smell. And I do not care. Later that morning, Andy, who is now home, buys 3 kinds of Pedialyte, Pedialyte popsicles, medicines, jello, bananas, rice, apples, toast...we try to give Aidan all of it. He is pissed. Having none. We discover that if I sing B-I-N-G-O to him while using a medicine dropper to feed him Pedialyte, he is content. I sing until I am hoarse. He is hydrated. I am LOSING MY MIND. I have to teach again. The instant I leave the house, Little A vomits all over Big daddy A. I teach. Come home. We are worried. I wake the boy to give him liquids and medicine. He seems less lethargic. I worry. No sleep again. More vomit. More poop.

Friday: Today. I have to judge a science fair. Much improvement in the boy. He takes liquids, food, throws up only half of the time. Poop is showing signs of becoming semi-solid. We begin to have hope. Perhaps life will no longer be measured in droppers of liquid. Perhaps we are good parents. Perhaps we might make it through this week...

In short, there is nothing more frustrating and hopeless than knowing that your baby, your angel, is sick and you cannot fix it no matter what you do. You are only a bystander, aware that there is very little in this world you can control and you'd wade through a river of shit and vomit to get to the one thing that will make your kid feel just a smidge better. It passes. Everything passes. You will do the things you need to do, and you WILL make it through the week.

Good luck!