Mom of the Year Award Winner (revisited)

So I usually write about my foibles and Eff-ups as a mom just because I need to get it out there. And because I figure it would provide a nice good dose of "Thank God I am not the only one who has barely kept their kid alive" type feelings in my friends who have children. A prime example would be here.

This morning, Mister Oliver woke up coughing a few times. It was that short, strange barking cough that gives any mom the damn willies. It's just not natural. And it usually means that a cloud of sleep deprivation for everyone in the house is about to descend on us and take residence for about a week.

Once he was up and around, however, there were no more coughs and he seemed fine. I had a tiny sliver of good sense that said, "Evie, you need to keep that boy at home today and make sure he takes it easy". But then the giant log of stupidity reminded me that Joe was to be gone all day and all night at the studio (still working on the Rusty Nail Project) and I didn't want us to be cooped up in the house from morning until bedtime without any sort of fresh air or distractions. Today, I wanted to be Fun Mom. Plus, the three weird coughs stayed merely a memory...

So I called up Miss Jill and invited her on a "hike" around Mt. Tabor. I thought the fresh air would be great for Oliver and give us something fun to do together besides play with Thomas the Tank Engine.

We scooped up Jill, decided we needed to have energy for our "hike" and stopped for lunch first. Then, we meandered up to the section of Mt. Tabor by the amphitheater, parked in the parking lot, and "hiked" over to the playground so Oliver could climb stuff and Jill and I could sit on a park bench. He started to get curious about what else was around us, so continued our trek to check out the amphitheater and followed that with a leisurely stroll down a park path, leading us back to the playground. This time, we sat at a picnic table and Jill and I mused that "doing stuff is tiring".

When Oliver had his fill, we loaded him back in the car and that's when it hit us like a ton of bricks. Poor little buddy was clutching at his belly and whimpering, and asking for his daddy. Obligingly, we drove to the studio where Oliver ran up to Joe and got swept up in Joe's arms, where he basically went limp and laid his head down on Joe's shoulder. We took turns holding him this way because he couldn't decide who was more comforting. It turns out neither of us could magically make him feel better.

Also, he was on fire. Burning up. Oh great. I'm an idiot. Why didn't I keep him home? In an effort to get him home and on the couch, Joe took Jill home and I headed straight for home with Oliver. His face was pale, and he started to doze off.

Basically, in my effort to make Oliver's day really fun-filled and healthy, I over did it and caused him to take a header into Sicksville.

Once home, I got him all snuggled into the couch with his favorite blanket (he also requested to be pantless) and encouraged him to drink his "Super Juice" bubble gum flavored Motrin. It went like this: PLEASE DRINK IT! YOU'RE SICK. IT WILL MAKE YOU FEEL BETTER. PLEASE!, while Oliver shrunk himself into a tiny armadillo-like ball and covered his mouth with his hands while screaming muffled words like "I'm NOT sick!" and "You're damaging me mentally and emotionally and I will probably need therapy when I'm thirty because you chased me with this plunger of pink goo when I was three!" After some sort of bribe, he downed it and I left him to rest and let the medicine do it's thing.

It's been about 20 minutes. He's now jumping on the couch and into my lap, and back on the floor and flitting around his train table, and now I am apparently in charge of making cookies for him.

I guess it's all about extremes with children. So I'm just going to go with that philosophy and punish and reward myself at the same with a batch of fresh-from-the-oven chocolate chip cookies.