I Want Mommy

It's ten minutes to one and I am far from crawling into bed at this point. My oldest, Lorelei started to complain the day before yesterday that her tummy hurt. I didn't think too much of it at the time because lately she's been having issues with poop. She doesn't want to go and has been holding it as long as humanly possible until she's either doubled over in pain or it's too late to make it to the toilet. Having carried her by the armpits to the bathroom last week, felt pens clutched in each hand and a huge lump of turd in her Hello Kitty undies, I naturally assumed it was yet again another poop issue. After spending all day yesterday lying on the couch and refusing all forms of food, even her favorites, I began to suspect that she really was indeed sick. Although she was down in our room at two thirty in the morning this morning crying that she wasn't feeling well and after yet another day spent lying on the couch, because she actually ate some dinner tonight, I thought she was feeling better. I was wrong. At eleven tonight, as I was struggling to get Georgia down to sleep after an early poop disrupted her afternoon nap routine, Lorelei woke and began crying. Shane went upstairs to check her only to come flying downstairs, child in arms looking frantically for our thermometre. She was hot. Steamy hot. I knew instantly before the thermometre read 39 degrees that she had a fever. And instantly, the words came out. "I want Mommy". For some reason, my headstrong child who normally prefers her father's company to mine wants me and only me when she's sick. It's sweet and bothersome at the same time. I love to take care of her, to mommy my girl. I love to nurture her by giving her juice and stroking her hot, sweaty curls and murmuring words of love into her ear as she snuggles into my lap. I hate the fact that my child gets me sick everytime she gets something.

For some reason, Shane can fight off whatever bugs he is exposed to never really getting sick, sick. But for me, I get sneezed on and I'm out of commission for the next ten days. My fellow co-workers used to joke that they would know how serious the colds going around were dependant as to how much time I would either be off or in the hospital. I've never had a very good immune system it would seem, or maybe it's too good. Too good at fighting my own tissues and pregnancies to bother with fighting off germs. So here I am, wondering if we've contracted H1N1 and trying not to be paranoid about it. I can't be sick right now because I need to look after Lorelei and Georgia and we can't afford Shane to take any time off work right now. But I'm wondering if in forty-eight hours I will be bedbound with a fever of 105 degrees like the last time I got sick. Sigh....It's nice to be wanted as Mommy, not so nice to be given a cold or flu. I'm starting to think I should just stock up on Tamiflu and the seasonal and H1N1 vaccines and get the whole family done at one time. I injected myself long enough during my pregnancies, how hard can it be to inject into a muscle instead of fat? And as for injecting others, I owe Shane a stab with the needle after he thought he'd learn how to inject me and he stabbed me with the needle only to pull it out in horror without giving me the medication....