It's a hard-knock life

One of my favorite memories from childhood is also one of the oddest, if only because it seems so random. I was 8 or 9 years old and I had been sick, so I was up very early in the morning — perhaps 4 a.m. It was still dark and my mother and I were watching I Love Lucy together on TV.

That's it. I've thought a lot about why this moment has stuck in my memory when I can barely remember anything about our family trip to Disney World or most of high school. I think what it comes down to is less the memory itself than the feeling — the feeling of being safe and warm and well taken care of.

When I was a kid, my mom always took amazing care of me when I was sick. She'd make me chicken soup and hot tea, diligently record my temperature and medications and let me watch Annie a hundred times in a row. She'd give me apple juice to drink and make sure my pajamas were warm and clean. And — of this she's particularly proud — she always changed my sheets so I'd have nice fresh sheets to sleep on instead of germy ones.

My mom always was and continues to be an expert at Jewish mother guilt and can always find a new way to say "I told you so," but when I was sick I never felt that she was annoyed or impatient with me. It was like all her energy was concentrated on making me feel better. And it usually worked.

There are a million ways my mom and I are different, as people and as mothers. But when Eli is sick, it's my mom I try to emulate. Last week, when he was laid flat by a raging ear infection, I even found myself calling him "sweetheart" — which isn't something I don't think I've ever called him before, because it was my mom's nickname for me.

Of course, with Eli sleeping in my bed and coughing all over my pillow, he was generous enough with his germs that I soon found myself with a raging sinus infection of my own. (Note to Mom: Of course, I changed Eli's germy sheets — but not mine!) I don't know if other moms feel this way, but to me there is nothing more pitiful than being sick as a grown woman with a child, a dog, a job and other responsibilities.

I want someone to change my sheets, I thought miserably. I want someone to make me chicken soup and put on Annie. Not the remake, either — the original with Carol Burnett.

There are some things I appreciate about being a grownup. Whenever I'm in a bulk candy store and some mom is telling her whiny kids they can't have any more candy while I'm gleefully shoveling more into my bag, for instance, or turning up the space heater in my office really high, or even when I go out with friends after dark and I decide to wear my glasses instead of my contacts because I'm grownup enough that I no longer give a fig about trying to look cute. (Yes, I said "give a fig.")

But as much as I felt like a grownup taking care of my son the way my mom took care of me, when I was sick I just felt like I was 9 again.

Sometime last week Eli announced joyfully, "You're my best friend!" But then, he continued mournfully, "But when I'm big, I won't see you anymore. Because I have to go to big kid school."

"Who do you think will take you to the big kid school?" I asked, pointing at myself. He shook his head.

"I have to go by myself!" he declared.

That's how I feel, some days: like I still need my mom, but I have to go by myself.

(Fortunately my mom lives three blocks away. And sent over chicken soup. And at least I have Phil to entertain Eli and walk the dog and get me apple juice and Afrin. But alas, no surviving copy of Annie.)