A Mother's Warped Confession

At 4 o'clock this morning, my "baby" (6 yr-old), came to me in a panic.  He could not breath.  He was wheezing, coughing and sounded like a dying seal.  Since his sister had croup about five times every winter, I knew the drill.  I put him in my bathroom and turned on the shower to the hottest setting.  That way, he could breath in some steam and it would loosen up his chest.

After he calmed down, I took him to my office (the bedroom across the hall from my bedroom) and held him and realized he was burning up with fever also.  So, I got him some meds for the fever and then snuggled up with him.  His breathing was definitely stressed, but our nebulizer was at my sister's house, so I could not give him a treatment. I got him to take a puff of his sister's emergency asthma inhaler.  And he started to relax and fall back asleep.

I held him until my alarm went off at 6:50.  I held him tightly.  I held him willingly.

When I had young stair-step kids (at one point it was infant, 2, 3, 4, and 5), I would have gotten the child calmed down and then made a pallet for them to sleep on the floor either in my room or in the office.  But this morning, I just wanted to hold him.

I was tired and he was miserable, but he needed me.  My kids don't "need" me like they used to.  They need me in different ways, but they are now old enough to be fairly self-sufficient.  When you have lots of little kids, you long for the day that your kids don't need you to do everything for you.  I'm gonna guess, most moms don't miss that when it has passed.  But, I do.  I love being a Mom.

I hate that Mac was sick and miserable, but my warped confession is that I loved getting to sit and hold his pitifulness for three hours this morning.