1 Mother 2 Another

I do love summer – the pace is
slower, expectations are lower, the schedule is lighter. You can
cruise along, coming up with fun things to do or simply lounging
all Saturday in your pajamas.


Or, you can have our weekend.


Which, let me say here, was not really bad – just not what
we’d thought it would be when we went to bed Friday night.


For starters, I’d arranged for our niece to come babysit
Saturday night, planning to surprise Brian with a date night.
Maddie had her horseback riding lesson at 9 a.m., but I could see
us sneaking out of the house while Brian and Cora slept, coming
home a couple hours later to find them still in their pjs, waffle
leftovers on the kitchen table. Then I pictured a whole day
lounging around the house, reading on the couch, playing games,
until Date Night arrived.


And I was mostly right.

Maddie’s lesson got off to a great
start: she wanted to ride bareback and the instructor agreed,
knowing Maddie will learn some things faster when she doesn’t
have a saddle to grab on to. Unfortunately, Maddie rode behind a
crabby horse who decided to kick HER horse, who then shied to the
right to get away from it . . .


Which then slid Maddie off to the left. Onto the ground.


Yes, Maddie had her first fall. And as falls go, it was excellent:
she was practically standing still, and never would have fallen if
she hadn’t been bareback and simply slid off her horse. She
fell on the side of her hiney, nowhere near a bone, and still aches
a bit but didn’t even bruise. She got up, crying, and led her
horse out of the ring.


And put a saddle on the horse and got up and rode back out.


So we came limping home Saturday morning, Maddie moving tenderly
and me anticipating a circle of solicitous concern around her when
we got home. We walked in and I spied the plate of leftover waffles
on the kitchen table. Ah! I was right!


“Daddy, I fell,” Maddie said sadly to Brian, still in
his pajamas. (Right again!) “Oh, that’s too bad,
honey,” he said distractedly (and with not nearly enough
sympathy, I thought). Then he turned to me.


“Cora’s sick.”


That? I did not see coming.


Yes, Cora got a stomach bug, and when Cora has a stomach bug
ain’t nobody happy. She throws up regularly, sometimes for
days, until I give her an anti-nausea drug. Trust me, I don’t
love to medicate my kids, but Cora will throw up every fifteen
minutes for six whole days, then take a Zofran, then feel
permanently better in twenty minutes. It’s like some switch
in her that can only be shut off by that drug.


So I sat with Cora, stroking her hair and reading to her and just
sitting while she watched t.v., for four hours, and after a few
rounds of vomiting I called it and gave her a Zofran. By the
evening she wasn’t eating too much but at least not throwing
up, and I counted it a success.


And called the babysitter and told her not to come. Sigh.


Saturday: Waffles? Check. PJs? Check. Sitting on the couch all day?
Check. Vomiting? Check, apparently.


Mommy getting the stomach bug? Check.


Yes, my stomach had felt iffy all Saturday and by the end of church
Sunday the thought of a meal wasn’t simply unappetizing, it
made me want to weep with pre-emptive worry. So I went to bed, took
a five hour nap, listened as the girls tore themselves and the
house apart outside my bedroom doors, and tried to rest.


I finally felt like eating a few things on Monday, so whatever it
was, it was fast-moving. And thankfully, the weekend wasn’t
hugely planned.


Well, except for the date night. Which, really, was a rookie
mistake – the planning ahead thing, I mean. Rookie
mistake.