Pinay Mom on Motherhood, Etc.

Cross posted on Pinay New Yorker 

It must’ve been overexposure to the heat of the sun.  I woke up at 5AM with Angel burning up in my arms.  Well, he wasn’t really THAT hot, but he was warm enough for me to know he was at least nursing a slight fever.  I upped and went around the house looking for my digital thermometer.  I picked up a face towel and wet it with cold water to cool his forehead.  He didn’t seem to be cold so I didn’t turn off the airconditioner.  He first registered at 37.9 degrees.  (I’m in the land of Fahrenheit but I know Centigrade better when it comes to fever — so thank God the thermometer has both settings.)  It was seesawing between 37.1 to 37.9.  Thankfully, it never went beyond that.

I cancelled daycare by 7AM and made a decision to stay home.  His fever was gone by 8:30 AM but I knew I had to monitor him all day.  I was drafting an e-mail letting my boss know I was working from home, but I was vacillating between taking time off and requesting to work from home, considering I am equipped to log on to the system (internal chat software and intranet server) remotely, but before I could make up my mind, Angel managed to punch the right keys to send the e-mail with “Emergency time off” in the subject header.  So I had no choice but to send an e-mail explaining the situation, and I took the morning off.  I managed to log on in the afternoon so I didn’t totally blow away a day with the situation here.  It was quiet, and I got confirmation for daycare for Friday, so I’m sure the boss will be relieved to hear I will not be asking to work from home tomorrow.

The boy’s okay now.  He doesn’t even struggle as much against taking his meds, but he’s not taking it quietly either.  He seems to be trying to expel the congestion in his chest, but I’m hoping the medicines I’ve been giving him will help to loosen it some tomorrow.

It is always difficult when the boy is sick, even if he is relatively an Angel (literally) even when you know he can otherwise be grumpy.  It doesn’t help ease my anxiety knowing he is just starting to talk, so I am not sure how to speak with him about how he’s feeling.  I guess I just wing it and base it on his cries and how he hugs me close when the coughing seems to be painful.  He’ll be fine.  My boy has always been quite a tough cookie — even if he tries to get away with his little quirks by kissing me gently with a smack and then smilingly impishly.  That’s the softee in him — trying to corner mom’s weakness, and he never misses.

My little boy and I had a date yesterday at the McDonald’s playland in our neighborhood.  First,k I felt bad that I didn’t realize the happy meal this week has little cars from the movie CARS as giveaways, so I missed out since I just got him his french fries and apple juice.  Had I known, I would’ve gotten him one.  (He’s at that phase where he’s absolutely car crazy!)  Then again, he has so much fun just going in and out of the entry ways of the play area (he still has issues about exploring the whole contraption so he stays by the entrances and doesn’t go very far) and we took a ton of pictures.

I patiently followed him and encouraged him to venture into the different areas of the play land while trying to caution him from being too adventurous.  He was so awed by the fact he could climb up and down and go in and out of the structure.  It was like every inch he went further in was a new thrill.

I missed Alan all the more because I know he would’ve delighted in watching Angel just as I did.  It was my way of making up for the fact that we didn’t go out this weekend because Alan is in San Francisco on business.  Angel always calls out “Papa, papa..”.  I’m not even jealous — I know they have a special bond.  Every time the phone rings, he says “Phone!.. Papa!” as if knowing it was his Dad always.

Next time we go, we’ll bring Alan along.

.. another kid just bit him again… (!)  I just got a call from the daycare people that another kid bit him in the arm this time — he is okay, and they apologize.

I don’t know what to say.. is it the color of his shirt?  I asked if he had provoked it, but they told me that he was just playing by himself when this other kid walked up to him and bit him on the arm.  Now what’s with that?  I would completely understand it if he had been playing and playfully biting the other kid which he sometimes does as part of our usual playtime at home — but he was playing by himself.

I just hope today’s double biting experience doesn’t traumatize him and make him wary of staying at the back up childcare facility.  If a third incident happens today, I’m going there and getting him out..and I just might bop somebody’s head.

This reminds me of an incident in Glorietta when Angel was trying out one of those kiddie rides.  He’s not really one to ride it when it starts moving — he just wants to sit there and move the steering wheel, but I had my token ready just in case he wanted to ride it.  He was seated quietly exploring the different knobs and buttons on one ride when a 4 or 5-year-old girl just brushed him aside causing him to fall.  Lucky for that girl, I was looking at something else and it was Alan who saw what happened.  Before I could react, the mother of the girl had pulled her away and dragged her from the area, probably afraid the boy’s Mom would fight with them.

I’m very protective and I haven’t been provoked into that kind of situation, but I will fight tooth and nail for my son, to the death.  He’s a very good natured boy who is just overly friendly most of the time.  I hope these experiences will not jade his young mind.

.. another kid just bit him again… (!)  I just got a call from the daycare people that another kid bit him in the arm this time — he is okay, and they apologize.

I don’t know what to say.. is it the color of his shirt?  I asked if he had provoked it, but they told me that he was just playing by himself when this other kid walked up to him and bit him on the arm.  Now what’s with that?  I would completely understand it if he had been playing and playfully biting the other kid which he sometimes does as part of our usual playtime at home — but he was playing by himself.

I just hope today’s double biting experience doesn’t traumatize him and make him wary of staying at the back up childcare facility.  If a third incident happens today, I’m going there and getting him out..and I just might bop somebody’s head.

The first thing I do when I walk Angle into the Toddler Room at our back up childcare facility is to lay down his baby bag and turn over his lunch for the day, his diapers and wipes for his bin and I was doing just that this morning.  Angel had asked for his bottle of apple juice and was not being cranky for a change when I turned around to see him and another boy with this lost look on their faces, and Angel’s hand seemed to be wet, and the other’s boy hand, too.  Then Angel started crying and I realized that the boy had bitten him!

Upon closer examination, it appeared he had been bitten not just once but twice (!), and although there were no immediate signs of any external wounds, the teeth marks were pretty obvious showing the other boy had bitten him hard.  I wiped his hand dry and saw that there were 2 tiny puncture marks and his skin started to swell.  The daycare staff were quick to offer me an ice pack, and I tried to put it on his hand as I started to comfort him.  We washed his hand and he was soon calm again, but deep inside me, I wanted to whack the other boy in the head.  (Mother’s instinct..)

I felt more ruffled as I walked out of the building to go to work because it made me realize there are so many things we cannot protect our children against.  There are things that are just beyond our control.  No matter how hard we try as parents, there is only so much we can do.

I’m sure the daycare staff were so relieved that I acted calmly and had not indulged in my own histrionics — I assured them I was okay with what happened, for as long as they watched the other boy and made sure he didn’t do it to Angel again.  I can only surmise that Angel must’ve innocently thought the other boy was being friendly, until the kid bit him hard.  He’s always been so friendly with other kids, missing out on having a playmate, sometimes he gets overly demonstrative like with my 8-month old nephew in Manila.  It was amusing how he would clamber up to where Art would be sleeping and start kissing the baby, startling him awake.

Angel’s fine — I just hope that bite doesn’t get infected.  He is so good natured he didn’t see it coming.  At least I’m glad it wasn’t my boy who was doing the biting.

Angel kissing Art affectionately when they met for the first time on April 21.