Spots, Spots, and More Spots

Spots, Spots, and More Spots

                                         By Judy

“Mom, I think I’m going to be sick,” are words every mother dreads for she knows the child doesn’t think he is going to have a sore throat, a cough, an earache, headache, or even a runny nose. No, the child means he is going to be sick to his stomach. Oftentimes, a young child is unable to complete the sentence before he is sick to his stomach. There are times and places a mother particularly dreads hearing “I’m going to be sick,” and I speak from experience. It was never good to hear those words in the middle of the night. I didn’t like to hear them when I was driving, and the kid was in the back seat either. It was never good to hear them while we were in church or when my child was onstage during the school’s Christmas program.

I didn’t want to hear them at 7:30 in the morning after the child had been home from school for a week, and I had missed work for a week. I might add in that particular instance because the child was not running a fever, I did go with the decision to send her to school for the day. The plan was to feign surprise if the teacher called. I do believe bus drivers, teachers, school secretaries, and school janitors have some special gene which enables them to efficiently clean up after—I mean care for—sick children.

There were other words I didn’t like to hear. It was New Year’s Eve. “Mom, look at these spots,” my younger daughter said right before she said, “Mom, I think I’m going to be sick.”

Two weeks later, my older daughter said, “Mom, look at these spots. Mom, I think I’m going to be sick.”

Two more weeks passed. “Mama, Mama, Mama, Mama, Mama, Mama,” my 18 month-old son cried. Translated, those words are, “Mom, look at these spots. Mom, I think I’m going to be sick.”

Two long weeks passed. “Dear, look at these spots. Dear, I think I’m going to be sick. Dear, can you take me to the hospital?” my husband moaned. Grown men do not, or at least that particular grown man, did not handle the chicken pox well. After several days of his moaning, I called the doctor, who possibly might have been a little tired of my frequent calls for something to calm my nerves and anti-itching medicine, said, “He’s already got the medicine he needs. They’ll stop itching before long. So, for now you can listen to him moan, or you can shoot him.”

Fortunately, the words from a song I used to hear in church came to mind--“yield not to temptation.”