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Email a FriendI remember those days of croup and asthma and middle-of-the-night ER visits. What a stressful time it was! And croup, even if it is not considered serious, is very scary, both for the parents and the little one. I have a friend who I grew up with who moved out of state away from her family. She had 4 little ones like me and her daughter had croup…but the difference was she was a single Mom (her husband had walked out on her in favor of a more “care-free” life). I use to try to offer up those sleepless, stressful nights with my little ones for this Mom and for others like her. How blessed we are who have a marriage and a family with both parents. When we had one child, we both made the trip to the ER. When we had more little kidlets, one of us went and one stayed home to take care of the rest. But what in the world does one do if you are single and away from close friends and family? You do as my friend did…wake up all the little sleepy ones and drag all of them to the ER in the middle of the night. God bless her…Raising kids is tough…it is most certainly meant to be shared by two.
Hacking Through
Posted by Arwen Mosher in Family on Monday, January 12, 2009 7:58 PM
A few months ago Lisa wrote about coping with running a household when the mom is sick. I’m aware of that challenge, especially since pregnancy often slows me down enough that some days I operate like I’m sick even though I’m technically not.
But I always forget how hard it can be to run a household when a KID is sick.
Camilla has croup. She is fine, but she was breathing badly enough that at 5:00 this morning we bundled her into the car and took her to the emergency room just to be safe rather than sorry.
Fortunately her oxygen levels and her temperature were normal, so they gave her a dose of steroids to help with her breathing and sent her home.
Unfortunately it was by then after 7:00 and none of us had gotten a decent night’s sleep on which to face the day.
We switched into survival mode.
Camilla and I took two naps and the morning one was three hours long. Bryan worked from home for half the day. Camilla drank an unprecedented amount of juice and watched an unprecedented number of videos. I did actually make dinner - mainly because the toddler loves to help and it distracted her from how miserable she was feeling - but when Bryan walked in the door this evening the living room was a jumble of toys and books.
Bryan and I tried to deal with the inevitable pre-bedtime breakdown with equanimity. And somehow we managed to get our daughter into bed and sleeping without completely losing it ourselves.
During the more difficult moments of today I tried to repeat the prayer I’d said in the car on the way to the hospital, that God would bless and heal the children who are truly ill and help me to remember what a blessing it is to have a healthy one. I really mean this, and I hope that He will use the minor inconveniences of having a mildly sick child to bring more grace to me.
However, I am still hoping that tomorrow will be an easier day.
Comments
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Arwen, I love reading your posts because it seems that many things that happen to your family happen to mine at the same time! You’ll be in our prayers…we just experienced a bout of stomach flu that took TWELVE days to get through me and my two sons—including two ER visits! So far, my husband has been spared—thank goodness for that, because I’m 33 weeks pregnant and not much help with carrying around a “sturdy” 3 year old! It’s so hard to remember to have uniformity with God’s will at these times…that he foresaw this illness from all eternity and allowed it to happen so that a greater good can be brought from it. Not always easy to remember at 1 AM in the Emergency Room! But God bless you in the remainder of your pregnancy—I’ll keep watching your posts for encouragement through mine!
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