Learning to Cope

Late this afternoon, Tink went to the ER because she still has a fever, and no one can seem to figure out why. Later, after three hours, she finally came home and we put her to bed. A little while after that, I heard her calling, and answered her. She said that she wanted to go upstairs and sit on my lap. So I carried her up and was barely seated when she murmured about the bathroom. As I was standing up, she launched forth red grape juice all over me. Whoever had that idea wasn't thinking so clearly.

A while later, after I'd scrubbed up both of our clothes, I found myself disinfecting the toilet. I knew that Mum was out, trying to clean Tink and get her calmed down, and Dad was cleaning the floor by the couch.

I suddenly realized that if you had asked me a few days before to go clean up this sort of mess, I'd have felt queasy and my stomach would immediately have gone into revolt. Most likely, I'd have come up with reasons not to do it, or gone on to be sick myself. But now, when it actually happened, I was just doing it. No one asked me. It was just something that I had to do. There was no question of coping.

Sometimes, when I talk to people at church, orchestra, or anywhere else, they ask me how I expect to learn to cope with the trials of motherhood, or why on earth I'd want to be a mother. Don't you know that kids get sick and you might be the nearest object to be splattered? Well, I actually don't know if there really is such a thing as learning how to cope. At least, I'm not sure if there is: there might be perhaps just learning to cope. It's not a theory, it's a fact. (As well as a slight semantic difference.) There is just doing it and going on with things in your life. Sure, there is a lot more that I have to learn, and I haven't really been an older sister that long; but life's about learning and doing, isn't it? Some people just say that I don't really know what I'm talking about, and once I have my own children, I'll finally understand and learn about the 'trials'. I don't know about you, but I think Tink's pretty good training for right now.

Excuse me, I'm off to unload the washer. Here's to hoping that my white shirt isn't stained from the grape juice.