Tag: sick kids

Intoxicating Dance

On By Anna EastlandIn motherhood, Poetry2 Comments

Oh the passionate dance
of a mother in the evening
as you rock and sway
your feverish child
who clings to you with far away eyes
half-open and heavy

Classical music bursts through the darkness
with delicate yearning
and ebullient beauty

How beautiful and terrible
this ballet…
your hands caressing the little one’s back
as you rock and sway
–a living cradle–
an exhausted ark
carried upon the waves
of wakeful nights

And as you dance
you long
for the intoxicating embrace
of sleep
to carry you away like blossoms
floating down a rapid river

Think not of waterfalls
for they come soon enough
dance and dream only of sleep

Frootloops for Once

On By Anna EastlandIn Family Life, Poetry3 Comments

 

Some days

when you’ve been up and down all night

with coughing kids,

giving medicine and fruit smoothie,

rubbing Vicks on hot little backs,

tucking and retucking in,

the only thing to do

when they mysteriously get up extra early,

before the decent hour of 7 am,

is to start the day afresh

with Frootloops for once—

very healthy with all that ‘froot’—

and “The best breakfast ever,”

according to my three year old.

Maybe smiling will help the bad bugs go away.

Sleepyhead vs. the Tummy Bug

On By Anna EastlandIn Family Life, Friendship, motherhoodLeave a comment

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Today my little one battled it out with a nasty tummy bug, using the best arsenal she had: closing those luscious blue eyes and sleeping whenever, and wherever she could, always accompanied by her special beige blankie. She napped on the carpet, on the couch, in her bunkbed, and most sweetly, in her highchair.

Although a few of my kids having fever and stomach flu aren’t the highlight of my week, I’ve got lots of things to be grateful for: my kind landlord who came right away and spent two hours repairing my oven when the oven door handle fell off earlier that day (a tricky task, we discovered!), Ida who gave me loads of lovely bread from Cobbs to feed my little monkeys, Milton who brought us muffins, Maria who come over today and helped me make dinner and clean up, too (using all the courage necessary to face my jungly sink and baby’s banana-covered highchair), and Natalie, who offered to drop off anything we needed, or even just felt like.

Sometimes, when life hands you a little icky flu, you see how surrounded by love you really are.