The Boy Gets Sick

You knew it was coming, didn't you? What possible post could follow the one entitled "The Boy Starts School" but "The Boy Gets Sick"? I was even kind of excited at the possibility of garnering multiple postings from the single act of enrolling The Boy in preschool, in spite of knowing full well that "The Boy Gets Sick" was the most likely subject of these postings.

It took him exactly three days to adjust to preschool but only two days of preschool to get his first cold. Since his first day was a Thursday, this means I had an entire weekend to work on convincing myself that I was not, in fact, sending my child to preschool purely to make my own life easier at the expense of my precious child (although my life is oh so very much easier when he isn't staying home sick).

As you can tell, I have not yet reached the point where I feel no shame in, say, leaving my child with a sitter while I pay the equivalent of four cans of organic formula to treat myself to an oxygenated facial. Because I have not yet figured out how it is really best for The Boy to stay with a sitter while I pay the equivalent of four cans of organic formula to treat myself to an oxygenated facial, I have not had a facial since my fortieth birthday, 14 months ago, when I could conveniently take The Boy along in utero.

His cold initially manifested itself only as a puzzling crankiness displayed toward our first weekend guest, a good friend who, even if he hadn't been a good friend before, leapt into the stratosphere of good friend-ness by driving to Asheville from Greencastle, Indiana, just to see us. Or maybe, as I now reflect on it, also to get away from Greencastle, Indiana.

Nonetheless, we were thrilled to be hosting him. The Boy, as I said, was not acting so thrilled. This may be normal baby behavior -- unexplained fussiness, days when a baby just doesn't feel like smiling -- but it is simply not normal for The Boy. Not that it stopped us from dragging him along as we treated our friend to an Appalacian weekend of the Fall Festival in Spruce Pine, home of (as a large sign informed us) the world's best Christmas trees; afternoon mojitos on our deck; a walk to downtown for a dinner that lasted well past The Boy's bedtime; hiking in Montreat; picnicking at an Episcopalian retreat center; and drinks at my brother- and sister-in-law's house.

This last event was the final straw for The Boy, who insisted I take him home because his head was pounding and his nose was stuffy and no one was serving him any gimlets. Once there, I decided I was possibly the best mother in the world for knowing that all he needed was a warm bath, lots of liquids, and a good night's sleep in a cozy crib to awaken . . . perfectly well, but for a slightly runny nose that didn't bother him unless it was being wiped by me or Hubby.

Of course, if that were the end of the story, this would be called "The Boy Gets a Cold," not "The Boy Gets Sick."

"The Boy Gets Sick" takes up after The Boy's fabulous first full week of school, when we took him on a road trip to Chapel Hill so Hubby could attend a conference.

All was off to a lovely start as The Boy and I wandered the UNC Chapel Hill arboretum, enjoying the hush of drying autumn leaves and the warmth of an 80-degree day and my new iPod Nano until The Boy fell asleep. Briefly. For the last time in ten days when falling asleep wouldn't take some whining and a lot of holding and maybe some baby Tylenol.

Forty minutes later, I was standing in front of Alumni Hall being one of those women with the Crying Baby. I am not accustomed to being one of those women. I am accustomed to giving The Boy a big hug or a toss in the air or a "booga booga!" and having him smile and feeling like everyone is staring at me in the hopes of picking up some pointers on good parenting because plainly The Boy's good nature is all due to me. It was humbling to be on the other end, to have people staring at me in the hopes of picking up some pointers on how not to parent.

Hubby made the mistake of leaving a message on my cell phone informing me that he might meet us for lunch at his 12:15 break. At 12:13, The Boy had been squealing and jack-knifing out of my arms for a full 53 minutes and Hubby was nowhere in sight. "It's 12:15," I snarled at his voice mail. I figured the circumstances justified my lying about the two-minute time difference. "I need you."

The minutes crawled by. The Boy continued to exhibit unfortunate bad judgment in insisting on squirming out of my arms and then crying as if I had already succumbed to my sneaking desire to abandon him here in this lovely town with lovely people who would surely find someone to take him in and raise him as one of their own.

At 12:22 I called Hubby again. This time he picked up. "I really need you," I choked through the effort of not screaming that I never ask him for help and I would never interrupt his conference if it weren't important and this was his son goddamn it and wasn't his son more important than his job?

Happily, Hubby doesn't need to have everything spelled out for him. "I really need you," was clue enough that this was not my first call for help.

His arrival was simultaneously the source of great relief and great stress. Because when you are dealing with a crisis all alone you may be forced to make every decision yourself, but at least when you make a decision you get to follow through with it, not argue about whether to take The Boy to an urgent care facility and whether he has an ear infection and whether it is wise to diagnose an ear infection based on information one has learned from the internet.

I'm not too proud to say that the on-call pediatrician agreed with Hubby about avoiding urgent care. But I did acquire some perfectly sound information about ear infections on a parenting website, and my diagnosis was confirmed when, finally, I was able to take The Boy to his pediatrician's sick clinic back home.

"He's got an infection in both ears," she confirmed as I reminded myself that, nice as it is to be right, I'd rather The Boy not have an ear infection.

I'm happy to say that I still don't question my decision to send The Boy to preschool, even though it's now a week later and we went to sick clinic for the third time this morning and every one of the three pediatricians in the practice has looked in The Boy's ears and two of them have spent more time than I'm sure they would like on the phone with me. Someone's got to help me figure out that The Boy might be more inclined to take his amoxicyllin if we render it cherry-flavored instead of bubble gum (a vast improvement, in his estimation) and that the amoxicyllin isn't working and that Suprax seems to be (in my estimation Suprax is an improvement because it comes in cherry flavor so you don't have to spend half an hour lugging your sick child back to the pharmacy to pay $1.99 for the pharmacist to make his medicine cherry-flavored). I feel utterly justified in seeking professional help when The Boy awakens after a few hours of sleep yelling and arching his back like a small, rigid fish. I will even admit to a thrill of pleasure that what the professional recommends is sleeping with The Boy propped up against me to keep the pressure from building up in his ears. I won't, however, admit that it's also really nice to have the bed all to ourselves because that would be suggesting that I enjoy banishing Hubby to the daybed in my office.

The Boy still isn't 100 percent, but I suspect today I will succeed in dropping him off at school without receiving a phone call ten minutes later informing me that he has a temperature of 101.8. For the past few days his smile has been back and he once again laughs when I drop him backwards in my arms and he has returned to his habit of speaking to himself with great concentration as he bangs two toys together.

And while I would never take advantage of something like my child's illness, it's likely that I won't feel comfortable leaving him on Thursday to speak at a Law and Popular Culture conference in Milwaukee, as I'm scheduled to do. Sure, it's flattering to be invited, even if I'm no longer a law professor nor likely to ever be one again. Without a doubt, I still enjoy the public speaking that is rarely part of one's life when one works at home and takes care of a 10-month-old. Still, The Boy is far more important than any of that, and he always will be, even if he doesn't really need to me stay home with him.

Motherhood, it seems, has a sneaky way of reminding us about our priorities.