I would like to take a moment to acknowledge this web site's status as a MOMMY BLOG. God, I hate that phrase, but there it is. My own child doesn't even call me "mommy" -- he prefers to poke me with a pool cue, or throw something light at my head, like a pack of cards or a handful of dog kibble. However distasteful and infantilizing the term, I would like to belatedly thank Babble.com for giving me the #28 spot on their list of 50 top MOMMY BLOGGERS. Since I don't actually write about my child that much anymore, it feels like they put me on there as a sort of acknowledgment for prior work. Like when they finally gave the Oscar to Martin Scorcese for The Departed, even though he'd made at least five films previously that were far more amazing, and not merely for slow-motion bodily fluid explosions, or putting duct tape over Jerry Lewis's mouth. Not that a link from Babble is like an Oscar. Not that I'm the Martin Scorcese of mommybloggers. If you are reading at grade-level I probably don't have to make that clear, but I find that making things like that clear is sometimes not a bad idea.
This is all a preamble to the fact that I am about to write about my child. My child who is on his fourth fifth day out of school this week and napping doing his homework on the couch next to me at this very moment. The child for whom I bought an 8-pack of Puffs Plus With Lotion because he asked for that brand by name, hoping that the ads were true and that they'd heal his shredded nostrils. (They didn't.) The child who was out sick from school for a week two weeks ago for a sickness only half as bad as this. (It's beginning to feel like we're homeschooling him.)
But I'm starting to question my own motives. MUST CALL IN TO WORK SO I CAN STAY HOME AND NEST WITH CHILD. Is this 24/7 cuddle party for him or for me?
Whatever the underlying motives, I'm afraid that all this snurgling and reading and watching cartoons has made him think that having bronchitis and an ear infection is absolutely the best, most loving and emotionally rewarding thing that can happen to a boy. Sure, I want him to feel the healing power of motherly love, but I'm a little concerned that I'm creating a self-indulgent recluse who is going to grow up looking for a way to spend his life on disability. Of course, I could be creating another Proust! Whose magnum opus will hinge on recovering the long-lost taste of apple juice and liquid Zithromax.