28 March 2005

Easter at the doctor's office

I hate it when my children are sick.

Sure, it is inconvenient. But worse, I hate being helpless. I hate not being able to make it better.

My two littlest ones are on antibiotics. My son, at least, can tell us what is wrong: "My ear, it huwts!!" No diagnosis troubles there.

My little one, nearly seven months old, doesn't have that luxury. She spiked a fever over the weekend, the first high fever of her entire life. She was scared, she was ill. And there wasn't much I could do for her.

I hate being helpless. I gave her the medicine to lower her temperature. I dressed her in cool clothing. I held the little blast furnace to my chest to try and get her to drink and bring the fever down.

I missed Easter Mass, something I never do. It was more important to spend Sunday morning in the doctor's office, getting a diagnosis and medication. Not to mention I slept barely three hours out of the previous 27.

Her fever seems to have broken this morning, after nearly 40 hours of feeling heat just come off of her in waves. And still, there isn't much more I can do. I can medicate her, I can comfort her, I can give her liquids.

But that helpless feeling won't leave, and neither will the guilt that maybe I could do something more. If only I could think of it.

In light of the Easter celebrations, it makes me wonder what was going through Mary's mind as she saw her son on that cross. Was she trying to think of what she might do to ease His suffering? Was she wracking her brain, trying to think of what she might have done differently?

Somehow, in the sisterhood of motherhood, I have to believe that she might have. We can't help it.

23 March 2005

No Break for the weary

Where I work, it's spring break. Last week, the students were downright loopy on a vacation high. Now that they are gone, it's so quiet, you could hear a pin drop.

Now, I have work to do. But it's raining and grey outside. I have a sick child. I'm in an anti-work mode. Mostly because I know my students are on vacation, doing fun things (I can confirm this by reading two different blogs), while I'm stuck here writing bios for a symposium.

Ugh. My job doesn't get much more dull than that.

So far, in a moment of absolute desperation, I downloaded 1980s-era country music from iTunes to play on my Mac. It's the same songs that my sister and I made fun of when we were kids, tortured by our parents' music choices in the car. But it's keeping me awake.

On the up side, I at least get Good Friday off. Eight hours and 30 minutes to go . . . .

"Delta Dawn, is that a flower you have on . . . could it be a faded rose from days gone by?"

(sorry, couldn't resist. curse me in comments for putting that in your heads.)

18 March 2005

Fun Toys, Long Week

For reasons I won't go into, this has been one of the longest workweeks ever.

So thank you to those who forwarded on these fun toys, which made a miserable week somewhat better.

Enjoy!


  • Find Your Spot Quiz


  • Baby Name Wizard
  • 09 March 2005

    Blue waters, grey skies

    It took five years, but we finally took a vacation last week. The kids stayed with Grandma and Grandpa.

    Who knew the waters of the Caribbean could be so crystal-clear blue? The skies were overcast, the waters were choppy, but the rest was much needed.

    We tramped the same ground that the Mayans once did, ogling their structures. We saw handprints made on structures by artisans 500 years ago. We saw the impressive planning and astronomy put to work to create a city at Tulum, Mexico.

    We splashed in the ocean. We swam with stingrays. We rafted the Martha Brae River in Jamaica. Ask for Danny to guide you if you go. He was amazing, a font of knowledge who is supporting his large family on what he makes as a nature guide/raft leader.

    We saw damage from Hurricane Ivan from September 2004.

    We also saw some ungrateful, racist fools who don't understand that an impoverished nation simply can't be held to their standards of the U.S. We saw others who felt it their right to berate our cruise ship staff for: Not having every NASCAR race on the satellite connection we had for TV, not having smoking rooms on board, and not accepting that it might be a fire hazard, not realizing that the staff can't make an exception to allow their family to join an on-shore excursion that is booked.

    It is no wonder a good chunk of the world thinks Americans are ungrateful louts. I saw more than a few.

    But then I also saw kindness and patience from other passengers.

    The best part of the trip: The look of absolute happiness on my son's face when he turned to look at Grandpa and instead saw Mom and Dad turn into the driveway after we'd been gone for nine days.