How G Is Different

*WARNING- This post contains vomit, barf and other bodily fluids. Continue at your own risk*

Yesterday, I spent my one, lovely day off curled up in bed with a nasty stomach bug. Cramps, nausea, and a case of the runs you read about in scientific journals, caused me to drift in and out of consciousnesss, and miss out on the house cleaning, craft making and general relaxing that I look forward to all week. Such is life.

This morning, I dragged myself out of bed after hitting snooze for the third time, and willed myself not to vomit as I lurched to the bathroom. And at the bathroom door...... a big pile of barf. I jerked my foot back from nearly landing in it, and fought with my gag reflex while shouting for GH to come out and help me. At first, I thought it was cat vomit. But after a moment, I realized it had to belong to one of the children.

As I grabbed paper towels and began mopping the floor, I realized the toilet was full of vomit too. How on earth could one of the kids puked so much and called for me or GH? I was worried. Should we go in and check on the kids?

Just as my paranoia began to kick into overdrive, G's door creaked open slowly, and his little head poked out.

Me: G, honey, did you get sick last night?

G: Yeah

Me: Why didn't you wake me up? I would have helped you.

G: I don't know. I just went back to bed.

Me: Are you o.k.? Do you still feel sick?

G: I'm fine. *pulls head back into his room*


And that's just it. Even at 7, G doesn't need me like other little kids need their mom. He doesn't sob and cling when he has a tummy ache. He doesn't call out for me in the middle of the night when he's been sick all over the floor. If it had been K, her pained shrieks would have alerted the entire house to her illness, and I would have spent the rest of the night stroking her head and singing her lullabyes. But not my boy. Not my G.

I have to admit, it hurts a bit, to feel so unneeded. To know that he was so sick and never once called out to me. To know that he didn't think to need me. And I hurt for him, to be be so sick and alone, without me, even if he didn't know he needed me. We only have so long to comfort and protect our little ones, that being shut out from even one vulnerable moment is hard to come to terms with. But that's just who G is. He doesn't seek the emotional comfort that other kids do, and I have to live with the fact that he just doesn't need me the same way K does. But how do I live with the fact that I still need him to need me?