Are you one of those parents that checks to see if your sleeping child is breathing?  Do you feel silly sometimes, but nevertheless can’t stop yourself from just checking one more time before you turn out your own light? 

That’s me, and it’s even worse when they’re sick.  My kids aren’t babies anymore; one turns 6 this week, and one turns 13 next week.  The middle child is 11, and at the moment has a terrible sore throat.  She couldn’t even stay awake during reading time, which is unusual for her.  My little night owl was asleep by 10, on a Friday night. 

So, I put her to bed and came back down to finish some articles.  I had to force myself to keep my rear end in the chair in front of the computer because I was getting anxious just sitting here.  I feel kind of stupid; I mean, it’s a sore throat.  They’ve had a million of these between the three of them.  But whether it’s a mom thing, or whether I’m just overly anxious, I worry about stuff like this.  I’ve read too many articles where some innocuous symptom (a headache, a sore throat, etc) led to a person’s death.  And I’m a hypochondriac-by-proxy–I always see major illnesses in places where there are only minor ones.  I know I over-react.  Not every headache is a brain tumor.  Not every sore throat is an out-of-control deadly bacterial infection.  Not every bruise is leukemia.  In fact, almost none of them are.  But it’s still true that two years ago, a stomach ache was actually a burst appendix, and my middle child spent a week in the PICU.  So, I don’t know that I’m willing to talk myself too far out of my worry.

I’m not normally a hovering, over-protective sort of mom.  I usually insist that my kids attempt to fix their own problems before they ask for help, and they are required to do everything they are able to do for themselves.  But when it comes to them being sick, I worry a lot… too much, maybe.  I try to hide it, of course, because my anxiety makes them more anxious.  So, just now when I went to check on my sickie, I didn’t wake her up to make sure she hadn’t slipped into a coma.  I just nudged her a little to make sure she was still breathing.