Intuition, Schmintuition

I was talking recently to a girl I know who has a set of twins. And she was lamenting on the fact that she wants one more, but doesn’t want one more. How she is going back and forth in her head over whether or not to have another child. Which I was actually pretty shocked at, because the twins were, “Hello, surprise!” and I thought for sure she would never take that risk again. So I tried not to discourage her, you know, by telling her how I met a woman last weekend who had twin girls and they wanted one more and got twins again, this time a boy and a girl. And she said that oddly enough, she wasn’t worrying about having another set of twins, it was the whole, “having three kids and being outnumbered” thing. She said the not worrying part was intuition.

And that got me to thinking. That mother’s intuition? The thing where a mother doesn’t need Lassie to tell her that Timmy is stuck in the well? Because she is like Sally Field on Brothers & Sisters and just knows that something bad is going to happen to one of her kids? I don’t have it. Let’s see. I totally thought I was having a boy. When the daycare told me the other week Samantha had 2 loose stools? I figured it was due to her cold. When my mom told me that she had 2 explosions of poo in her crib on Saturday and had been whiny all day? I thought she may have had too many prunes the day before and that maybe she was pissed at me for ditching her to go to a football game. And on Sunday, when she only wanted to be held by me and felt warm to the touch? I guessed it was a virus and we’d give her Tylenol to help her get through it.

By Monday, the poor girl was downright dejected. She wanted to be held all day, and would only sleep lying upright because of the snot in her head. When I thought a bath would help to cheer her up and a warm one would feel good and help drain the snot? Yeah…that was the night her fever spiked to 101. It was only that night that I started to wonder if it was a little more than a virus, that perhaps she had something some nice antibiotics would take care of. (I also did not think to put her back in the tub, this time with cold water) Fortunately, I had listened to my mother and made an appointment with the doctor for Tuesday morning. And it took all of 5 seconds for the doctor to look in her ears (after waiting for 45 minutes in the waiting room) to confirm that poor Samantha had not one, but TWO raging ear infections. The wax in the right ear was actually melting because it was so hot. (I don’t know if this is normal, because not only do I lack intuition, I also lack an MD)

She is on her 7th day of bubble gum flavored amoxicillin, the same stuff I got when I was a kid, and I am not sure if the mox will be enough to kick the raging ear infections. Because she is still snotty and needy and whiny. And that? Is not my kid. I’m a little nervous about trusting my intuition on whether she is just teething (one more did come in on Saturday!!) or whether her ears hurt and she is trying to say, “DAMNIT MOM…MAKE ME FEEL BETTER!!” She goes in next Tuesday for a 2 week check up. (I’m trying to at least allow myself some common sense and listen to the other mothers around me.) The good news is that this illness seems to have taught her the meaning of mama. As in, she stands up in her crib when I attempt to put her down for a nap, holds her arms out to me and yells, (with pathetic big, fat tears rolling down her chubby little cheeks) MAMAMAMAMAMA!! Or when I walk away from her to go to the bathroom, she crawls after me with the same pathetic, big fat tears sobbing MAMAMAMA! And once? Just once? She looked at me, then my mother, and sobbed DADADA. As if she was like, “Screw you guys, I want my dad.” Good luck kid…I’m not sure what kind of intuition he has, hope it’s better than mine!