Ch-Ch-Changes
By Sariah S. Wilson
To warn you beforehand - I’m going on about four hours of sleep.
Yesterday ended up being a day of great transition and change for our family. Last week my husband surprised me with the announcement that his company had decided not to renew their lease on their office space and to have the workers telecommute out of their homes. In trying to keep me from hyperventilating, he talked about the prevalence of this in many IT related industries. So he spent yesterday moving all of his office equipment and computers into our bedroom. We currently have an empty room, but as we’re having this baby and since I think that if we put our 7-year-old and 4-year-old into a room together they would never sleep again, our room was the only option left. My husband knows himself well enough to know that in order to do his job he will need to be isolated, and his current computer is in our computer room (which for normal people would be a dining room but is our room where we have our four computers set up) and since the computer room is in the main traffic area of the house, he knows he’d never get anything accomplished.
Now instead of kissing my husband good-bye each morning, he’ll be here. And that seems so weird to contemplate. I am an extremely anxious person when it comes to his job situation, and I’m living with morbid fantasies of the company deciding to shut down or to hire someone to do his job out of their New York office. While I logically know nothing in life is certain, there is something comfortable and familiar about the routine of my husband going to work each day.
I don’t know how it’ll be with him home all the time. I can definitely see some benefits - it will no longer be difficult to arrange appointments and such, or if there’s ever a need for him to watch one of the boys, he’ll already be here. Or if I need him to come home early one night for something, he’ll already be here.
But on the other hand, on days when he’s worked from home in the past or been sick, it’s like my whole day/schedule has been thrown off. I suppose it’ll be time for me to work out a new schedule for my new situation.
And early Friday morning (and by early Friday morning I mean like 1:00 a.m.) my husband found our 4-year-old lying in a pool of barf in the bathroom. He was too weak and sick to get up and go back to bed. My husband cleaned him up, cleaned up the bathroom, and cleaned up his bed (where he had also thrown up, and on a side note, can you see why I love my husband so much?) where our little one promptly threw up again. I got up to help (as I basically no longer sleep and just lay in my bed with my eyes closed and pretend - it’s the funnest part of the end of my pregnancies) and we got him settled and back to sleep. The next day he was running a high fever, couldn’t keep anything down and wasn’t urinating. You parents out there know that’s not a good thing so by Friday evening we were in urgent care. For four hours.
They gave him some Zofran (which is the best drug *ever* - it makes you not throw up. I’m a big, big fan) and some Tylenol and he perked up a little bit. He spent a lot of time sleeping on his hospital bed, with his special Mickey Mouse that we got for him at Disney World. I sat there, stroking his hair and watching him sleep. There is nothing sweeter in the world than your child’s face as they sleep. And as I sat there, extremely uncomfortable in my chair, I thought of the last time he and I were in a hospital together late at night. It was when he was born.
One of the things I remember most about his birth was holding him in my arms, late at night just like last night, and feeling the spirit of our next child. It was what drove me to find this baby. Many people encouraged me to give up- after all, I already had two children. Perhaps that was all the Lord intended me to have. Obviously, if he wanted me to have more, they informed me, he would have sent them to me.
But I felt her. I felt this little spirit that I knew was supposed to be part of our family. And as I held my new baby in my arms, I thought that it wouldn’t be long until this spirit joined us.
So nearly five years later, as the three of us were together again in a hospital room, I thought gratefully of the next profound change that is coming into my life.
Not all change is bad.
To warn you beforehand - I’m going on about four hours of sleep.
Yesterday ended up being a day of great transition and change for our family. Last week my husband surprised me with the announcement that his company had decided not to renew their lease on their office space and to have the workers telecommute out of their homes. In trying to keep me from hyperventilating, he talked about the prevalence of this in many IT related industries. So he spent yesterday moving all of his office equipment and computers into our bedroom. We currently have an empty room, but as we’re having this baby and since I think that if we put our 7-year-old and 4-year-old into a room together they would never sleep again, our room was the only option left. My husband knows himself well enough to know that in order to do his job he will need to be isolated, and his current computer is in our computer room (which for normal people would be a dining room but is our room where we have our four computers set up) and since the computer room is in the main traffic area of the house, he knows he’d never get anything accomplished.
Now instead of kissing my husband good-bye each morning, he’ll be here. And that seems so weird to contemplate. I am an extremely anxious person when it comes to his job situation, and I’m living with morbid fantasies of the company deciding to shut down or to hire someone to do his job out of their New York office. While I logically know nothing in life is certain, there is something comfortable and familiar about the routine of my husband going to work each day.
I don’t know how it’ll be with him home all the time. I can definitely see some benefits - it will no longer be difficult to arrange appointments and such, or if there’s ever a need for him to watch one of the boys, he’ll already be here. Or if I need him to come home early one night for something, he’ll already be here.
But on the other hand, on days when he’s worked from home in the past or been sick, it’s like my whole day/schedule has been thrown off. I suppose it’ll be time for me to work out a new schedule for my new situation.
And early Friday morning (and by early Friday morning I mean like 1:00 a.m.) my husband found our 4-year-old lying in a pool of barf in the bathroom. He was too weak and sick to get up and go back to bed. My husband cleaned him up, cleaned up the bathroom, and cleaned up his bed (where he had also thrown up, and on a side note, can you see why I love my husband so much?) where our little one promptly threw up again. I got up to help (as I basically no longer sleep and just lay in my bed with my eyes closed and pretend - it’s the funnest part of the end of my pregnancies) and we got him settled and back to sleep. The next day he was running a high fever, couldn’t keep anything down and wasn’t urinating. You parents out there know that’s not a good thing so by Friday evening we were in urgent care. For four hours.
They gave him some Zofran (which is the best drug *ever* - it makes you not throw up. I’m a big, big fan) and some Tylenol and he perked up a little bit. He spent a lot of time sleeping on his hospital bed, with his special Mickey Mouse that we got for him at Disney World. I sat there, stroking his hair and watching him sleep. There is nothing sweeter in the world than your child’s face as they sleep. And as I sat there, extremely uncomfortable in my chair, I thought of the last time he and I were in a hospital together late at night. It was when he was born.
One of the things I remember most about his birth was holding him in my arms, late at night just like last night, and feeling the spirit of our next child. It was what drove me to find this baby. Many people encouraged me to give up- after all, I already had two children. Perhaps that was all the Lord intended me to have. Obviously, if he wanted me to have more, they informed me, he would have sent them to me.
But I felt her. I felt this little spirit that I knew was supposed to be part of our family. And as I held my new baby in my arms, I thought that it wouldn’t be long until this spirit joined us.
So nearly five years later, as the three of us were together again in a hospital room, I thought gratefully of the next profound change that is coming into my life.
Not all change is bad.
Sariah Wilson — 3/31/2007 09:55:00 PM
5 comments
5 Comments:
Sariah, having your two boys share a room would be much easier to handle than having your husband turn your bedroom into an office. Four and seven work out well together usually, but bedroom and office don't. We tried this once when the paper I worked for let me work from home. What a disaster. A little corner in the kitchen even made a better office than the bedroom did. Anyway good luck with it and I'm glad your little guy is feeling better.
Sariah, I know whereof you speak! When my husband is home, it throws off my entire day. (I love the man dearly, but I have my routines, see?) But it won't be long until you're used to it. He'll get used to your schedule just as you'll get used to his. It'll all work out for the best.
And your segment about being at the hospital -- what a sweet memory you shared. I'm so glad she's on her way and that you won't have to wait much longer for that dream to come true.
Goodness, what a poignant, touching post! It made me cry. (Happy tears, of course.) It also made me feel really, really guilty to have sandwiched it between such silliness. Please forgive me! (You won't fire me, will you?)
Poor Kameron! I agree though, Kevin would probably work better in a highly trafficked area then in the bedroom. It seems like it would bring more problems then it would solve...
Number 15 on Deseret's most popular book list! Way to go!!!
Thanks everyone for your comments and suggestions.
You'll never be fired, Kerry. Just try and leave. See what happens. ;) Your frog posts are one of my favorite things to read on the blog, and I loved your April Fool's joke. I'm just so happy that you were able to get your ISP problems worked out and can post again. Yay!
High traffic areas don't work for Kevin when he's trying to do his job. The programming requires a great deal of concentration, and we've already discovered he does better when he's isolated. This happened once before when he was between jobs - he tried working downstairs and couldn't. When he moved upstairs to the spare room, he did great. Too may distractions/noises going on down here.
I'm pretty stoked about #15 on the Deseret list. I'm also on Seagull's top selling fiction page too (#5).
Elizabeth, did you guys go up to Salt Lake for me and move all my books to the top shelves facing out? :)
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