Nurse Nightingale Mode

Woke up from a sleepless night; my two boys are sick and I am on worry mode. F & S maybe taller than me, bigger than me but they'll always be my boys. When my friend B joked that she'll only allow her baby son L to have a girlfriend at 39, I laughed. But then, I totally get where she's coming from. When you become a mom, you get another setting: the Nurse Nightingale mode. You fuss over them. You take care of them. You make sure that not even a fly touches their soft skin.

I remember when my boys were little; F was the really sickly type. He got every illness that a baby could get: bronchitis, amoebiasis, sore throat, etc. And when F got a fever, it always shot up really high. S was kinder to me. Not only was his the easiest pregnancy I had among the four, he was also an easy baby to take care of: no-fuss.

But then, whenever they get sick, I'd flutter around like a hummingbird, always checking their temperature, making sure they're comfortable, making sure they're okay. My son K, when he found himself sick once, quickly remarked, "Oh no, Mom's going to get worried again." My son S would actually smile when I'd put my hand on his forehead for the umpteenth time.

I thought that when they get older, I wouldn't feel quite as praning as when they were little; but no, I feel exactly the same way, waking up every four hours to give them their medicine, staying half-asleep so that I could sleepwalk to their rooms to check their temperature. It's exhausting true but then, I wouldn't have it any other way.