Sick with it....

I don’t know how you do it.

And by “you,” I mean parents.

And by “it,” I mean raise children.

Especially when they’re sick.

The last two days, Grasshopper has brought over Franco, burning with fever and looking as helpless as anything. And it kills me, because we can only do so much.

I can run out, sweep him up and carry him into the house.

And Kim and I can run through the familiar, frantic gears of fighting the fever.

And we can use what medicine we have.

But all the while we’re made to watch the little guy being all miserable and weak. It takes such a toll on me just to look at him, retching up everything we give him and shivering with the fever. His pathetic round face…

Honestly, how do you do it?

I mean, don’t get me wrong—someday I do hope I have my own kids. In fact, that’s often what gets me through being thrown up all over or cleaning up puke or cleaning wound after festering wound. I just repeat in my head over and over about how this will somehow make me a better mother someday. ;)

But having to nurse my own kids through stuff like malaria and not wanting to wrench control out of God’s hands—that must take a special endowment of grace, given the moment you leave the maternity ward.

So, good on you for that.

I’m going to have to ask for some sort of honorary endowment, just to survive these last few weeks, with malaria season upon us.

Oh, and maybe a little something extra, to behave in love toward the kids’ mothers, who leave their sick toddlers with their slightly older siblings. Whew…