Under the Weather

My little guy is sick today. He’s got a cough and a light fever and a runny nose. 

He’s a little out of it too, but I don’t think he’s figured that part out. He just goes on making noise and throwing toys like there was nothing wrong. It’s just that every few minutes he draws his forearm roughly across his little nose and face reactively and looks up with some confusion afterwards like he’d been struck by a wayward soccer ball. 

“What the ... what’s up with my nose?” he  seems to be thinking, his little weary eyes looking up at me appealingly, “Can you do something about this Dad?”

I’ve picked him up out of the crib once already tonight to give him some children’s Tylenol and a sippy cup with water. He sat on my knee too for 20 minutes or so watching Harry Potter on DVD while the medicine took effect. He’s back in his crib now, sleeping lightly. 

I worry as much as anybody when either one of my kids is sick. They’re both so young. There both so precious to me. My head fills with awful irrational fears that they’ve caught something serious; even though my rational self (and his continued appetite) tells me otherwise. 

“What if it is something serious?” I think and try to put those thoughts aside. 

“You’ll know if it’s serious,” a voice tells me, “You won’t be guessing.”

I think this must be a common feeling among new parents, the worry over every little illness. The little twinge I feel every time I hear one of those loud coughs disrupt the night and pull me out of the light sleep that’s settled on me. 

For him, I imagine, this is probably not a big deal. I’m sure it’s annoying, but he looks more confused than uncomfortable or really sick. 

“This?” I hear him say to my imaged worry in our imagined conversation, “This?! This ain’t nothin’! I’m fine.”

But I think it is easier being the one worried about sometimes than the one who worries. 

When I have these moments of angst, I can remember being a boy and waiting up with my mother for my father to return home from work. Some of the nights were dark and wintery and some of the waits were long (there were no cell phones back then). My mom, I could tell, was nervous and it rubbed off on me. I wanted the wait to be over. I didn't like the new fears that something might be wrong. 

“If only I was with Dad in the car,” I remember thinking at the time, “Then I wouldn’t have to worry. I’d know.” 

The thought seemed to comfort me a little at the time, though I still had no idea when he’d be home. I wish I could capture some of that comfort tonight. I wish I could feel like I was with my little guy in that car too. 

But maybe that’s what happens when you have kids of your own - you can’t go back to that place with them. Maybe it’s only them who can see ahead to where you are. Maybe that’s one of the gifts that  life gives to the very young; that inscrutable comfort that the imagination provides. I know I can’t find it tonight. 

I hope he feels better tomorrow. I know I’ll sleep better when he’s breathing easy again. But I’ll just have to wait by the window and look out at the snow and wonder when he’ll come in out from under the weather. 

Sleep well little man. I'll be up listening for you. 

Good night. 

Creature Double Feature

When I was a kid, I used to spend Saturday afternoons at my best friend Kevin’s house for the Creature Double Feature on UHF Channel 56. 

Kevin lived four doors down from me. Kevin and his brother Tim and I would sit in their television den and watch that old program from Noon until 4 p.m. Every Godzilla or Rodan or Space Alien film ever made would re-run for those four hours. We had soda and peanuts and made predictions about who the monster would get next. 

“I bet it’s the General ... No. No. No. It’s the blonde lady .... No. I think it’s the scientist .. It can’t be the scientist - they need him to say where the monster came from ...,” we’d go on and on and never get tired of it. The more attacks and the more victims the more fun to watch and to guess. 

Right now I’m pretty sure the next victim is me. 

My son caught a virus over the weekend. He’s passed it to my wife. I know I’m next. I can feel it on the back of my neck like lightning breath or a sonic attack or a beak thrust. It’s going to be bad. 

This feeling of expectant sickness is most awful because it makes me dread the things I usually love most. 

“Thank you for my tea,’ my poor sick wife said to me earlier and gave me a kiss. It was delightful. I’m also sure is the reason I’m sneezing now. 

“Just like pod attacks,” I’m thinking, “Even the woman you love could be a danger.” 

Either that or the little wet nosed hug that my son gave me when I picked him up to take him to bed. 

“That’s it,” I thought, “The death ray. I’m done for.”

I dread getting sick. I’m an unabashed baby about it. I just can’t be sick. No way. Can’t stand it. I also can't do a thing about it. 

I remember being sick a lot as a kid, and then again as a teenager. And then as an adult (before children) I remember one or two colds a year. I got my flu shot annually and took care of myself. 

But for the last few years with my son and daughter, it’s been one long string of different viruses - seven or eight a year. I feel like I used to feel when we had to go cloths shopping for elementary school. Each new virus feels like one of the many pairs of Sears Toughskin Jeans my mother used to make me try on. It just goes on and on. Ugh!

I know. I know. I’m washing my hands. I had chicken broth for dinnner. I’m taking my vitamin C and an omega tablet my wife has convinced me will help (despite the fact that it didn’t help her). I’m also on Airborne - something a friend recommended to me. But these preventive remedies feel like those faulty force fields that the creature from The Forbidden Planet somehow penetrates. It’s all in vain.

“Get some rest,” my wife said to me just a few moments ago as I stopped up with some toast and water. 

She’s probably right. I’m sure the rest will help more than anything. I’ll stop being a baby and go to bed. 

And in a day or so, I’ll either still be healthy or be outright sick and won’t mind as much. But for now, I’m examining every little odd feeling or sneeze as if I were in a dark labyrinth and using all my senses to detect the approach of the dark unknown creature that lurks there. 

“Show yourself!” I want to say and brandish my ray gun, “Stop playing with me!” 

But like a good monster film, the creature never does. It just appears behind the victim suddenly for a candid toothy close up for the delight and horror of the viewers. And then .... 

Tune in over the next few days. I’ll let you know if I get caught or survive.