Emily Anne

Dear Mom,

It’s your birthday! Happy! Happy! If it was my birthday, you’d have already shopped and shipped, (you’ve such a knack for forethought,) and I’d have a fabulous birthday package waiting for me. But it’s your birthday. And I have neither shopped nor shipped (I’ve a tremendous knack for procrastination,) so you won’t have a package waiting for you this afternoon. I feel bad about that. But I also feel bad about the fact that I spent the bulk of last week trying to keep vomit from landing on carpeted surfaces and scrubbing the evidence of irritated bowels from the insides of my toilets while you lounged on the veranda and floated in the tropical lagoon of the Sheraton on Kona. Hopefully your week in paradise will keep on giving, thereby easing the sting of the no-gift-from-Emily disappointment.

I have been thinking about you, though. I’m always thinking about you. How can I help but think of you when evidence of your love lies in my closet (those “perfect T’s” you just sent — I’m wearing one today, stretched amusingly snug over my gigantic belly.) My cupboards (the crock pot, the dishes, the recipe book you sent me to college with.) My child’s closet (the cowboy boots, which are now too small for Henry, but which he insists on saving for his baby sister — funny!) On my bathroom counter (the yummy soap.) Atop my nightstand (that fabulous book; I’m almost done with it.) I think it’s safe to assume, from these many kind tokens, that you’re often thinking of me, too? (I know you are.)

I’m sorry I woke you from your birthday morning slumber with a question about online Schwab transactions. I couldn’t help it. I was thinking about you (see above.) I seem to have acquired something of a Pavlovian instinct, here’s how it works — Stimulus: Anything (a problem, a question, something wonderful, a panic.) Response: Call Mom. And I do. Even when I know it’s your birthday and the call will wake you up. And you always have just the right thing to say. And, better still, you know when I don’t want you to say anything. And you just listen ’til my rant about nesting, or the c-section nightmare, or how I said the “S” word at my husband, is over. And then you help distract me with a brighter-note question, like: “So, what do you have to look forward to this week?” You’re so clever like that.

I told you on the phone this morning about all of my anxieties surrounding my upcoming life-change (i.e. birth of child number two.) And the list is not short. But do you know what is my twinkle of cheer? My little patch of azure in all the heavy clouds of impending change? My you-can-do-this token that shimmers at the bottom of the murky pond of change? My something to look forward to?

It’s you.

It’s the fact that you’ll be here. To help, to talk, to watch movies, to cook, to shop, to clean, to sit, to love me and help me love my babies (TWO of them!) — and that you’ll know, without me even telling you, just how I want everything done. And you’ll do it better and faster than I ever could.

And you’ll do it all with a happy, willing heart (even in spite of the fact that I didn’t regale you with a timely birthday package.) And then you’ll go home, and between your online classes and sundry responsibilities, you’ll fill your time with thoughts of other people–kids, strangers, friends, dad. Reading to the old ladies, helping strangers get their teeth fixed, rescuing young mothers from impending insanity, feeding friends, hosting parties. It’s what you do best; you dazzle at selflessness. And somehow, even with all that giving, in a way that is quite paradoxical, you are remarkably whole, balanced, and sure. A real life example of one who has lost her life (the self-serving and vain parts of it) for many peoples’ sakes — and has (hopefully) found it anew — brighter, fuller, deeper and better.

In this way, and in all the ways that matter, really…I want to be just like you when I grow up.

I love you, mom.
Happy Day,

Em

…and it’s only Wednesday. But things are looking up. We’ve just had a lot of vomit and diarrhea around here. That’s all. And those two visitors are never really welcome, but they’re especially unwelcome on the heels of a week like last week (which was laden with fevers and fits and ER visits.)

But you know, as hard as it is to care for a sick child, I’ve felt something intangible about me this week that’s been remarkably sustaining. And I think, I know it’s proportionally related to the amount of praying I’ve been doing. I’ve had all sorts of tiny, revelatory moments during the past eight days that have reminded my heart of important things it needed to remember. Case in point: I’m not usually inclined to think, in the middle of a midnight vomit session, “I’m so glad I get to be this child’s mother. I’m so thankful I’m the one who can comfort him all night tonight and all day tomorrow.” My thoughts are usually more akin to, “It smells like a sewer in here. Who was the dim-wit mother who brought her sick child to the nursery?” (I know. I’m not proud.) I think perhaps the pregnancy is at play somewhere in all of it; the heightened spiritual awareness coming from the fact that creating life is a close partnership with God. And as much as it makes my airway constrict to think about forthcoming decades of cleaning up after “didn’t quite make it” incidents and scouring WebMD in the wee hours to rule out Crohn’s disease and appendicitis, it is also sort of breathtaking to imagine that there are decades’ worth of insight, compassion, patience, empathy and unquantifiable love yet to absorb because I’m the one they call “mama.”

There are also tangible things that help mellow the crazy of a week like this — like peaches going on sale for .99/lb. Peaches that are actually sweet. And juicy. And perfect stirred into my morning bowl of vanilla yogurt with a few Grape Nuts (for crunch.)

And surprise packages from friends. And a closet full of painfully adorable little girl clothes from a baby shower that couldn’t have been more lovely, thrown by friends who could not be more genuine and dear, where we ate mapley, pecan-topped sticky buns that could not have been more diabolical (nutritionally speaking.) Or more delicious (sensorally speaking.)

And this guy. (Also delicious, no matter which way you are speaking.)

Who took me to this place a couple of weekends ago.

Again…delicious.

And (wishfully thinking) of the possibility of another date night with him this weekend.

Oh, and peanut butter toast with a sliced banana. (Tangible.) And always helpful. With everything.

I firmly believe that the emergency room is the worst place on earth, second only perhaps to the DMV. (We found ourselves there twice last week for incidents of severe pain in Henry’s stomach.) I also firmly believe that I have a lousy pediatrician who sent me, crying, eight-months-pregnant, and very frightened, to the ER to sit and wait (and wait and wait) with my screaming, writhing child (who, incidentally, calmed down as soon as we got into the car to drive to the hospital.) After all that waiting, here’s the dialog that finally prompted me to leave the ER without treatment on visit #1:

Me (to the woman sitting next to me in the waiting room): So, why are you here?
Her: I think I broke my back.
Me (horrified): Oh. How long have you been waiting?
Her: Two hours.
Me (even more horrified): Oh, so we could be here a while?
Her (looking at Henry, who, by this time, appeared perfectly fine): yea, and they see you in order of urgency, so looking at him, I’d say you’ll be waiting a long while.

That was my cue to take my child home for what I think he really needed (a nap and the comfort of home.) And we left.

When he woke up from his nap, we had a repeat bout with the writhing pain, labored breath and inconsolable crying. So we headed to the ER again — this time to one closer to our house. Again, the crying stopped as soon as we got in the car, but I pressed on in grim determination to find out what was going on inside his body. His condition improved dramatically after the triage nurse administered a dose of children’s Motrin (for the 102 degree fever.)

Here’s what prompted us (Nate was with me by this time) to leave the ER sans treatment, the second time:
After an hour and a half of waiting, my child was literally skipping and running back and forth past the other hacking, moaning, bleeding patrons in the ER waiting room. I thought we were safer to leave than to stay sitting (waiting) next to the large man who was rocking back and forth, coughing spewtum into a hanky.

So, though we waited for more than three hours, in two different emergency room waiting areas, we were never actually seen by an ER doc and Henry seems to be fine. Apparently, he can’t come within five miles of a stomach bug without coming down with it, and apparently there was a nasty bug going around that caused several of his little friends to come down with high fevers and at least one other little girl to have similar bouts with stomach cramps/pain.

He describes the incident as “that one night I had a rock in my tummy and it didn’t go down the hole.” He is such a dear — during one particularly pain-laden moment, we were both sitting on the bathroom floor, crying, contemplating that second trip to the ER. When he looked up and realized that I was crying too, he asked, “Does your tummy hurt too, mom?” and then got up and unrolled a few squares of toilet paper to wipe my tears with.

Maybe that’s why it hurts me so much to watch him suffer because I know better than anyone else on earth what a sweet little heart beats inside his ailing body.