What keeps me going....

Let me tell you about my last 36 hours. No, wait...that won't give you the total picture. Ok, let me start just under 2 weeks ago. It Thanksgiving, and we're having a wonderful day with family and friends. I notice Melia is getting a goopy eye. "Great....", I mutter. "I'll give pink eye to my friend's kids!" Later that night, Emilee gets a goopy eye as well. A trip to the Dr. the next morning tells us that they both have bacterial eye infections and raging ear infections. We start them on rounds of antibiotics.

Ok, now fast forward to 10 days later. We are on Melia's last day of antibiotics when she spikes a high fever. Hmmmm....how do you get a fever when you are already on antibiotics? I took her in yesterday morning and her other ear is now infected, as well as the fact that she's still a snot machine and has the same nasty cough she's had for 3 weeks, and it sounds worse each day. At least the antibiotics worked for Emilee!
So Melia gets even more antibiotics. Then nightfall hits. Emilee wakes up crying and choking, gasping for air. We thought she'd aspirated some vomit or something because she was coughing and choking so much and her breathing sounded funny. But when I ask her what she was choking on she tells me "Air! I don't know how, but I was choking on air.". She complains of her head hurting and she is burning up. She's so hot to the touch and her poor body is racked with shivers. So she gets a cool washcloth, some cuddle time and eventually a cool bath as well, although she's really not too happy about that! She wakes up a few more times in the night and ends up sleeping her hot little body next to me all night.

I hate sick kids. Not only do I hate not getting sleep, but I really hate just being helpless while your kids are miserable! But at least Megan has escaped being sick! 1 sick kid is hard; 2 sick kids is miserable; 3 sick kids makes you want to scream. So at least one kid is healthy, right? Emilee and Melia have been sick so long it's a miracle that Megan has just been happy as a clam.

Oh yeah, wait. I shouldn't have said that. Nevermind. Megan just came to me. She too, now has a fever and has goop running out her eye! Boy, fun times! Why do I do this again? Someone remind me why Motherhood is this spectacular wonderful thing...

Actually, I know why. Last night, amidst all of the snot, crying and hot heads, Megan begged me to make cookies with her. I had just cleaned the kitchen, a small miracle in itself and I didn't have any wonderful Pillsbury refrigerated cookie dough to plop on the sheet! But I was feeling generous and so I buckled down to make real cookies with Megan. As she mixed the shortening and flour together, making sure to spill most of the flour all over my nice clean counter and floors, Megan looked up at me, smiled that killer 3 year old smile and said, "I really love working as a team. Mom, I love you!"

It's amazing how one small sentence makes 36 hours disappear in an instant. In one brief moment, I went from Over-worked-mommy mode to I've-never-loved-another-being-as-much-as-I-love-you mode. How do they do that? What do kids have that make us melt in an instant?

Granted, what you're not seeing in this story, is that at the exact same time, my 18 month old is entertaining herself by dumping water and day-old Bean with Bacon soup all over herself and floor. No magic spell can last for too long...I might get spoiled! But now I have my memory for the day....the memory that can get me through the day. Ok, who am I kidding, that will memory will probably have to last me a month, but I don't care. That's the thing about kids. That one beautiful bonding moment can make you not care about 1,000 frustrating, tiring or discouraging ones. I love being a Mom.