Mother Capacity

The words of Lisa Rigby in "Creating a Childhood", touched me today...."If you look back, you can see that what was hard work for you then, is easy for you now.  You even do it without thinking".    I often look back to the time of being a one child family.  I remember what used to be such hard work as a new mother is now just another every day thing we do.  We  have the capacity to stretch ourselves beyond what we thought we could and stretch our love beyond what we thought we could.

Today things are not going as planned.  It's not a crazy busy day, in fact everything has slowed down.  My one bit of sanity, my little selfish delight (aside from chocolate) is my weekly yoga class.  I won't be making it today.  I also had an appointment with my Naturopath today (trying to sort out my migraine problems) I won't make that today either.

I had a little man in my bed last night, the reason he was in my bed is that it was more comfortable for him to fit in my bed than me fit in his, Donald was moved to the spare bed.  Toby came home from pre-school with a headache yesterday, which developed into a brief low grade temperature which then later in the evening turned into dizziness and vomiting.  What used to be a major event when we only had one child now seems just another thing to do in my week.  I have ice cream buckets strategically placed around the house, under each child's bed, towels laid over pillows, just in case, you see I want to prevent having to wash bed sheets.  Lying in bed waking at every snuffle, cough or grunt thinking that Toby is going to vomit makes for a tiring evening.

It is difficult to know sometimes if an illness is coming on or a pre existing condition that Toby has is manifesting itself.  I speak of Toby's dizzy spells that he has experienced over the past couple of years.  Initially the ENT (ear, nose and throat) specialist thought it was crystals in the ear canal, that was two years ago.  After several more frequent occurrences of dizziness, we visited a Neurologist who feels that Toby has Vestibular Migraines.  Migraines!!  I always thought that because I had given birth to boys and not girls that there might be a slight chance of not passing on my inherited nemesis.  Sadly not so.  We are still to see a pediatric neurologist to investigate further, but in the mean time Toby still has dizzy spells, his eyes flicker and his temperature increases and nausea creeps in.

I am tired but I know that I am doing the right things by being home for my little man.  Just being there is a comfort to him.  He knows that he can come and sit on my lap and tell me how his head is spinning and I will comfort him and listen to him.   Just knowing how brave and practical Toby is with not a word of complaint I feel blessed for his presence and joy in my life.   I am grateful that we have the capacity as mothers to bear our children's burdens and stretch and grow beyond what we thought we could.