Overprotective

So my little pooh has a summer cold. Either that or allergies. He was sniffly when I picked him up from school today, and then developed a cough when we got inside. The cough got progressively worse through the evening. Now, there might have been several reasons for that....dancing around like a maniac to Kid Songz for 2 hours, being sensitive to all the ant spray I doused the living room in (came home to an ant picnic on one of the end tables...lovely. Don't know where the hell that came from, but there were no survivors), or the after-effects from the crying jag he had when Mommy (rightfully) yelled at him for knocking over her Chinese food all over the freshly vacuumed floor when he was doing something he wasn't supposed to be doing.

Regardless, I was concerned. These were dry, hacking coughs that were very frequent (at least one per minute) when I put him to bed. Yes, I count coughs. One per minute or more and I am very concerned. If five minutes or more passes between them, I am less concerned. My goal is to always get to five minutes or more between coughs, preferably ten after medication. So although part of me felt silly as hell (it IS May, isn't it?), I broke out the Vicks Rub and the cough medicine at bedtime tonight.

And here I sit counting coughs. We were at one or more per minute still for several minutes after bedtime. Cue concerned Mommy. We had inched up to one about every three minutes about ten minutes ago, and then suddenly...no coughing. Not even one little cough, for over 15 minutes.

I should be happy right? No, now I'm paranoid. I had to go check to make sure he was breathing. Of course he was. I didn't even make it into his room, I could hear his little snores as soon as I got outside the door. The little pooh snores like a baby bear wuffling through the woods. It's cute...at this age. I pity his future wife.

As soon as I knew he was still alive, I felt quite idiotic for going to check. What kind of crazed mother wonders if she OD'd her preschooler on cough medicine?

When I was a child, my family (especially my grandmother) hovered over me like I was made of glass. I couldn't go anywhere, do anything, try anything without a bunch of hemming and hawing and lecturing on the dos and donts of safety all the way out the door. Here are some of the classics:

• Swimming at the beach with friends? Forget it. I might drown.
• Walking to the corner store for a snack by myself? Forget it, I might be kidnapped, raped, or killed. Probably all three.
• Talking on my cell phone on the porch during a rainstorm? Nope. I might be electrocuted.
• Eating some food I left out for a little while or that god forbid, fell on the floor? (the ultimate no-no) No way, it had to be thrown out or I might contract some deadly form of poisoning.
• Napping on the couch during the day and wanted to put the pillow over my head to block out the light? Nope (and I kid you not people)...I MIGHT ACCIDENTALLY SMOTHER MYSELF. At the so-non-accidentally-smothering-oneself age of 16!
• One time, when I visiting my grandmother on a college break, I woke up in the middle of the night to see her staring me in my face only inches away. Very alarming. I asked her what the HECK she was doing and she said she had been listening to me breathe and swore that I stopped for a minute (I'm pretty sure she was being paranoid as I do not have sleep apnea) and so she came to check...I had to be at least...oh, I dunno...TWENTY YEARS OLD. God forbid I am still checking on Justin's breathing when he is 2o...

Needless to say, I found this tremendously annoying. I swore I would never be an overprotective maniac like the women in my family.

Now that I'm a mother myself, of course, I am an overprotective maniac like the women in my family. I find myself making all kinds of asinine assumptions regarding my child's safety and I realize now that being overprotected is the deepest sign of love. It's a sign that you are very, very precious to that person. So precious that the thought of losing you terrifies them. I'm not saying it's right, and I had some harrowing experiences that they never knew about as a direct result of raging against the overprotective machine BUT...I'm still here.

So thank you Mom, Granny, Aunt Dorothy, and especially, especially Gaga (the mastermind of most of those scenarios) for being overprotective. You taught me well.

30 minutes since the last cough by the way.