Through the Looking Glass

When I was a kid, my mom had this incredible sixth sense for when I was sick. As soon as I woke up, before I could even pull the cobwebs from my sleepy brain and register that I felt like shit, my mom would be kneeling beside my bed with her cool hand on my forehead. I never got a chance to ask her how she knew that I was unwell -- maybe it's something that all mamas have, like eyes in the back of their head, or an extra arm for cooking dinner, holding a baby, and washing a sink-load of dishes. After quizzing me on my symptoms, my mom would spread a crisp, clean sheet on the couch, bring a vase of flowers to the coffee table, boil water for herbal tea (with lots and lots of honey!), bring over a few colouring books and crayons, and turn on I Love Lucy. I'd doze in and out of sleep on the couch, and by lunch time, I'd enjoy a hearty bowl of homemade Jewish Penicillin chicken soup.

"Chicken soup can cure anything." My mom would always say. "from a headache to a broken heart."

Even that miserable week over Winter Vacation, when I had a virulent case of the flu -- even when my body was wracked with a cough, some serious sniffles, and a raging fever, and I had to miss out on Christmas and Hanukkah parties with my friends -- I still felt safe and snug at home on the couch, and didn't really mind (too much) that I was sick. And, my mom was right: Chicken soup soothed my symptoms every time.

Maybe I always felt safe when I was sick because my mom was so calm and reassuring. Even when she made a series of hushed phone calls to the pediatrician that time when my temperature wouldn't back down from 105 F for a day and a half, and my CBC came back with some suspicious markers for Leukemia, I wasn't afraid. It never occurred to me that maybe something was really wrong with me because even if my mom was worried, she never let it show. (As it turned out, it wasn't Leukemia -- just a nasty viral infection that did a number on my white blood cell count.)

But now, I've gone through the looking glass, and I'm the parent. But, I'm nothing like my mom: I'm Woody Allen with girly parts. Instead of sniffles, I see Swine Flu. Instead of an uncomfortable case of gas, I see appendicitis. So, when M seems to be feeling unwell, I immediately leap (with the agility of an Olympian) to the scariest possible conclusion.

And this Friday morning, as I emerged way too early from my Thanksgiving Dinner coma, I sensed that M wasn't well. I'm not sure how I knew that something was wrong, but like my mom before me, I put my hand on her forehead to check for temperature. And while she didn't seem to be running a fever, a few minutes later, she woke up wailing and miserable. Suffice it to say that it's been a rough couple of days over here -- M is a leaky faucet of snot, and while she seems to be mostly ok during the day, our nights have been brutal. She's horribly congested, and since she's breathing through her mouth, she's swallowing too much air, and belching and farting like a frat boy. The worst of it is, it hurts her, and until she lets one rip, she's writing around in tears, which only makes her mucous flow like a waterfall down her quivering chin. And so it goes. I know toddlers are supposed to get sick, but my mind goes into this 'what if' vortex, and even when M is finally able to fall asleep, I can't.

But still, when she's dripping with snot and screaming her head off, I hold her close and hide my fear. I sing her favourite songs -- (Regina Spektor's 'Fidelity' and Snoop and Dre's 'G Thang.'). I bust out the plastic bath toys that she insists on playing with in the living room. I hand over the crayons and let her draw on the floor. I ply her with juice popsicles, and we sit on the couch watching Sex and the City. I want her to feel safe, the way I felt as a sick child, and so, I pretend. And as I go through the motions of reassurance, I wonder if my mom felt as serene as she seemed when I was sick, or if that was just a scared parent's skilled subterfuge.