Sick sick sickity sick

Noah’s sick again (hello, first fall in group care) and so Carl and I are discovering how poor our backup plans are for sick babies. (V. at other family’s house; my dad is having surgery next week so neither he nor my mother can be exposed to bugs.)  Other than post-vaccination sick this is the first time he’s had a fever for more than 24 hrs (since Mon night, in this case).  Telehealth said to just give Tylenol/Motrin and wait and see, but I took him down to the doctor anyway… who said to just give him Tylenol/Motril and wait and see.  After having to wait for an hour.

Noah was pretty good about the whole “doc” thing, although he announced loudly in the waiting room about 2343 times “no doc’ my go home now mummy.”  But he even said ‘ah’ and stuck his tongue out. I personally thank Caillou for this feat, since Caillou sticks his tongue out and says ah in “Caillou visits the doctor.” Which we also read 2343 times.

Still, it is something to see him grow up like that.

Any time Noah is sick with something new though, I do get really flipped out – the kind of background flipping out that makes small organizational challenges hard. Like I left $16 worth of both Tylenol and Motrin at the drugstore (but I did bring home the milk and the dishwashing detergent! :P)

With this fever comes a cough and a runny nose and at night he sputters and his nose occasionally rattles and whistles a bit and it’s the whistling that really wakes me up with That Sound in my head again, the sound of Emily’s breathing after we took her off the ventilator.  What I think, after the adrenaline subsides a bit and I have fought down the urge to wake Noah up and prove to myself that he’s okay, and used the flashlight to check that his fingertips are not blue, is I’m never going to get over this, am I?

Probably not.

When I was SAHM or WAHM, it was okay to have these freakouts and get no sleep whatsoever and be disorganized and a mess.  But now that I am in a key phase of my project and being a good 40 hr a week employee, the cracks feel gaping.  Especially since I now work with people who have no clue about Emily (other than the vacation ask) and couldn’t care less. Yesterday I had to cancel meetings (never good when you are still freelance) and then talk on the phone with Noah playing, and I felt really lost and stupid. 

It has actually been a while since I felt too messed up to join the Real World(tm). Or, just maybe, sort of wished I hadn’t. Why again did I choose excitement and ambition and financial solvency?

I realize some of this is growing pains too, around parenting and working.  Probably almost all of it. But inside, I still have that jolt of fear that all the non-normality and dysfunction will suddenly become visible. And then, of course, the world will end.