I’ve been horizontal for three days–hit hard with a stomach bug. This morning, when my 14 year old stops in my room to see if he can call a friend, I ask him to (please) go downstairs and get me an Advil. And do you know what he says?!
I can’t right now Mom. I’m doing something else.
He can’t right now, he’s doing something else??? Can you believe he had the gall to say that to the woman who conceived him (with difficulty), carried him (with complication) and birthed him (by emergency caesarean)?
What about the first five years of his life when I nursed him through countless colds, bouts of bronchitis, the occasional pneumonia and the incidence of pleurisy? (Who has even heard of that last one!?)
Not to mention, all the rides to school, to friends, to events…
Of course, I could write a book about just WHY he absolutely HAS to get me an Advil the second I ask–and within moments of my TIRADE on that subject, he did just that–and later today he didn’t blink twice when I made another request.
Is this a teenage thing or a boy thing, I wonder? I’m guessing it’s largely gender based with a teenage twist.
I remember my sister Michelle telling me about the time her head was in the toilet with morning sickness. Her daughter placed a wet washcloth on her neck, while her son asked her repeatedly if he could play Nintendo.
I had a similar experience this summer when I sliced my finger on a garden slate. Just as I felt myself beginning to pass out (a first for me), I yelled to my boys to get me a homeopathic for trauma upon which my teenager spilled the bottle on the floor.
Instead of just giving me one, he repeatedly asked what he should do with the ones on the floor. With an ashen face and the room spinning, I tried to give him a look that said, “Is that relevant right now?” but he just kept on asking.
What is it about the male psyche that can make them oblivious to what is going on inside another? Probably the same thing that makes my husband look at me suggestively when I have barely eaten in three days.
This is the same guy who encouraged me to “send the baby to the Nursery” after our home birth was transferred to the hospital.
“We need our sleep, that’s what it’s there for…” the traitor said before dozing off, leaving me holding our newborn after 8 hours of labor and a c-section to boot.
To be fair, my husband takes good care of me, bringing me tea and apple sauce and crackers. Hopefully his tenderness will rub off on my boys by the time they’ve become husbands and fathers themselves.
(How about you? Do your sons or daughters take good care of you?)
The Empty Nest Diary 