Friday was a study in bitter cold and burning hot. The morning started off with temperatures—depending what news source you picked, thermometer, dashboard, or Internet—a little or well below zero. As temperatures plunged and the wind banged against the windowpanes and the pipes clanged in the night making our big yellow house seem like the little engine that could, I tried not to resent the dear husband’s work taking him to the glory land of California where moisture remains in the air and you don’t need mittens or grippers on your shoes. The cute little girl had been croupy coughing all night long. Along with her seal bark, I found her in the morning red-cheeked and sallow-skinned and with glazed-over eyes. No surprise, she was hot.
This year, there’ve been a few mornings so cold walking to school almost seems potentially hazardous so I found Remy a ride. I didn’t want to take the fevered gal outside at all, especially into the very, very freezing cold. When I walked outside later on, the temperature was a balmy 25 degrees. Neither Remy nor I had our hoods on for the walk home. It was the winter equivalent of those gorgeous days in May that begin around 40 degrees and peak at seventy. That’s New England for you, I guess.
After her nap, Saskia’s fever had spiked. True confession: I have no thermometer so this is a hand and lips measurement only, sans numbers. Take my word on this; she was super duper hot. She practiced her best barnacle impersonation, clinging to her mama from 3:30 until, well, all night long and still (going on 24 hours now).
At one point in the middle of the night—we really weren’t sleeping much—she climbed upon me and I don’t think I’ve ever had such intensive heat channeled directly toward me. Perhaps I sweat more at Bikram class, but I have never experienced hot like that—and I’ve had my share of clinging babies with fevers in my day.
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More than anything—well, as much as anything—the hardest part about this last day or so is coming up against how impossible it is for me to meet everybody’s needs (including my own), especially when one is sick and the co-parent is out of town. With four children, I expect each of us to come up short on a regular basis. I’ve shifted my sense of this from it being a loss and a bummer to celebrating its virtues. Call it benign neglect 2.0. Call it learning to live as a team player. Call it not needing as much as you think you need or at least figuring out just because you want something you might not need it. Call it discovering the warmth in 25 degrees.
Whenever the dear husband goes away, I tell him I’m one babysitter away from disaster. I could be one snow day from disaster. Or one illness: when the tiny foothold I sort of have on equilibrium is lost it almost seems like free fall into unmitigated mess. Saskia’s not quite so hot as yesterday. I know she’ll get better. I know I’ll sleep again. I know one day I’ll feel more settled about my work life (or, I suppose, not, but I’ll figure it out, eventually) and one day, teendom and tweendom will be behind us (along with latency and early childhood). I know, even in these crappy moments that I’m doing my level best to savor them and simultaneously to be okay with their immediate suckiness. I’m lucky to be breathing in and exhaling, to be here, in the muck of a day that’s risen just above freezing, even if I’m inside gazing out at it.
