I never get to be a momma much these days.

I never get to be a momma much these days. I am always a mom, but I don’t get to be a momma, ever since the day JCH turned all of 10 (“Mom, I am almost 11”, said JCH in the background every day.)

Moms are responsible, clean, cook, check to make sure homework is done, and hand out punishments when piss poor attitudes need adjusting.

Mommas get to take care, coddle, and nurture a sick and / or a wounded child that wouldn’t normally let you three feet into his room.

So, when Friday morning rolled around at 7am, I was summoned to my son’s bathroom, (which by the way has been off limits to me if he is in there, for privacy reasons) I knew something was wrong.

He didn’t look too good, with a flushed red face (his pre-teen-looking face looked more like his baby face to me again) as he sat desperate on the bowl asking me to provide some relief.

“Momma…my stomach hurts… I don’t feel good… I need a drink of water….”

“Okay buddy, hold on…”

The minute he was finished drinking the water… that’s when the vomit-fest began. All over the rug, all over his pajama pants, and…..all over me, as I tried to rush a trash can underneath his face.

He didn’t cry. I held his head, grabbed a cool washcloth placed it on the back of his neck and rubbed his back.

“Momma, I don’t think I can go to school?” His voice quivering.

“You’re not going anywhere buddy. Hang on okay…?”

I called my office, his school, my mother, and my father, while in the bathroom with JCH keeping an eye on the thermometer in his mouth rising above 101.

A few more sips of water and another round of puke mess, it was time to strip down the germ-infested clothes, and got a bubble bath ready. (baths, are another thing 10 year olds don’t do anymore…. “Mom, I shower now…”)

Once I knew the bulk of hurling had passed, I helped him take off yucky wet, nasty-ness, and into bubble tub good-ness.

While he leaned back in the water, I tossed everything in to the laundry and headed back into bathroom with my sick baby.

I was allowed to hang out in there with him! I was allowed to TAKE CARE of him. Running soothing washcloth water over his head, dispensing Tylenol, and giving him words of comfort.

45 minutes later, time to get out of the tub, I wrapped him up in a towel like you swaddle a newborn.

I put fresh pajamas on my baby, tucked him into bed, and read him a story until he fell asleep.

Even though I have been a mom for quite some time now, some things never change, like strange uncontrollable fears.

What? If? while he’s sleeping and he has to throw up again? but he doesn’t wake up? And he chokes on it? And he dies? Like Jimmy Hendrix?

So… I stayed in his room the whole time and watched him sleep.

Overprotective? Much?

Three hours later he woke up and I gave him another dose of Tylenol. (yeah, I know your supposed to wait 6 hours in-between doses, but WHY? wait? for the fever to COME BACK? when you can keep the FEVER down! if you give the Tylenol every FOUR hours instead?)

That’s when we shifted from his bedroom, to the living room. I opened up the sofa bed. For some reason, he loves the sofa bed. So… when he’s sick, he gets “special” treatment.

I gave him pedialite, and jello. We watched cartoon network all day together, cuddled up, under covers, and a massive amount of pillows.

He even let me “kiss him” with my magical momma powers to make him “feel better”

After a full day of cuddles, jello, saltine crackers, toast with jelly, rest and cartoons….By 7pm, he was feeling sooooooooooooooo much better.

Even well enough to play games with me. We played old games, the same games we played when he really was little. Clue Jr., WAR and GO FISH.

Which….. I lost… as usual

Then…WAR and GO FISH with my favorite playing cards in the world…

………. And, I LOST both of those games too….

I gave him one last dose of Tylenol at 9pm, and let him stay on the sofa bed for the night with his favorite comedian Lewis Black playing on HBO ON DEMAND to fall asleep to.

(besides the sofa bed is closer to my room then his bed room, so I could check on him more often through out the night…which of course, my paranoid self did, about 25 times.)

We are all feeling better today and JCH has been symptom and fever free. Thank god! It was a 24 hour kind of bug!