Old Fashioned Comfort

Putting our boy to bed Monday night, we could tell that he wasn’t feeling well. So we gave him a little medicine and, thankfully, he slept through the night. Tuesday was a whole different story.


He woke up crying. It was not a mad, sad, angry, not getting my way, or I need attention cry. This was more like a moaning and wailing type of cry. Before my wife went to work, she told me that it might be a good idea to give him a bath. This would get him clean, but also wash off any dander in case it is allergies. We are still not sure if the season change affects him in this way or not.

So since he was still in bed, I got his bath drawn. He was being very whiney at this time. I asked him if he wanted a bath. “No bath”, he replied. I asked him if he wanted juice. “No juice”. I asked about breakfast, milk, TV, and getting up. “No breakfast”. “No milk”. “No TV”. “No up”. It was going to be a long day.

He then asked for his plastic duck in the most helpless voice he could muster. So, I gave him his duck. He then whimpered and pointed to his Edison the talking alphabet caterpillar. I submitted to his request. Now, Edison is a good learning tool, but to be honest, sometimes he gets annoying. I long for the day when he turns into Edison the butterfly and flies out the window to start his new life.

So I am getting my teary eyed, not feeling good boy out of his pajamas for his bath and he is sobbing in that “everything hurts” kind of way. Once he got into the tub, his demeanor started to improve. The soothing water made a definite change in his countenance. So, with him in the tub, I went into the kitchen to refill my coffee cup. It is nice that, at this age, he can be in there without the 24/7 watchful eye and paranoia as when he was younger.

Coming back down the hall heading into the bathroom, he points to the water and says in his falsetto voice, “Poop”. And I thought to myself, “what a wonderful world”. Upon further inspection, it turns out that he had just made bubbles. Whew! Bullet dodged. We have been working on potty training him and his awareness is good news, but I wasn’t in the mood to do any haz-mat today.

Washing his hair caused more trauma, complete with tears and painful sniveling. Drying him off and dressing him for the day provided no relief for the boy. It is sad when Dad can’t fix the problem.

For most of the morning, he moped around. He wasn’t being bad, but he just couldn’t seem to feel comfortable in his own skin. He drank some juice but he didn’t want to eat anything. After a bit, he goes into his room and grabs his blanket and wraps it around him and sits on the floor drawing with his Magna-doodle.

The next thing I see is my sickly little boy on the floor with his blanket covering him. Now this is not unusual as he does this quite a bit. Sometimes he will play “nap”. I asked him if he was tired and would he like to take a nap in his bed, ant the reply was “No nap”. So, I head back to the kitchen for a refill.

Seconds later, I hear snoring. There on the floor, my boy, is taking a nap.

Rather than risking waking him up, I just left him there, sawing logs. And there he slept. In fact, he woke up minutes before T. came home from work. This was her first sight of him for the day, with mussed up hair, rosy red cheeks, the sniffles, and slightly “ferhoodled”.

It was a long day for me, as every attempt to care for him fell short of satisfaction for the boy. So my wife, grabs his blanket, his bear, scoops up the boy and sits on the couch, curling him up in her lap. He cuddles tightly next to her and slowly falls into the most restful sleep ever.

I tried all I could to appease, repair, control, and remedy the situation, but to no avail. The fix was in the arms of Mommy.

Sometimes, a kid just needs their mom.