Questions of Intuition

Intuition

All I can do is act according to my deepest instinct, and be whatever I must be-crazy or ribald or sad or compassionate or loving or indifferent. That is all anybody can do.

- Katharine Butler Hathaway

I like to think that I have pretty good intuition.  That when I “sense” something is wrong, it usually is.  I had really good intuition when Cora was five days old.  She wasn’t acting right, and everyone around me thought I was being anxious, but I just had this feeling that she wasn’t herself.  I went back and forth all day wondering how much of herself she could really be at five days old.  I mean, what does “too sleepy” look like when you pretty much sleep all day anyway.  And for that matter, what’s the difference between a “watery stool” and a “French’s Mustard stool”?  They look pretty much the same to me.

After watching her like a hawk all day, I decided to put a call into the pediatrician.  Of course, it was 4 pm on a Friday, so they just told us to take her to the ER.   We figured we would go there, they would tell us we were being spazzy parents, and we would come right home in time to tuck Ella in for bed.  Turns out, everything was not okay.  She was dehydrated from having diarrhea, and they transferred her via ambulance to Scottish Rite, where they hooked her up to all kinds of IVs and monitors, and we had to stay there for three days.  Words can’t explain the trauma of watching people poke IV needs into your tiny baby’s arms, and trying to put a catheter in her, while you stand helpless, watching her turn shades of red and purple from screaming.  I’m so glad I had listened to my “mommy intuition” though, because according to the doctors, if we had waited, she could have been in critical condition within hours.   So now, whenever I get that feeling, I wonder, is it “mommy intuition” again?  And, if I ignore it, is something terrible going to happen? 

One of those moments occurred today when I texted Ms. Brenda, Cora’s daycare provider, to let her know I would be picking her up early for an appointment.  When I didn’t hear back after a few minutes, I didn’t think too much of it.  An hour later, when I was leaving my elementary school and heading to my middle school, I decided I would give a call to the house, just to make sure Ms. Brenda had received my text.  My call went to the answering machine, which has never happened.  I figured she probably had her hands full changing diapers, or getting breakfast ready for the kids.  Five LONG minutes passed,  and I decided to call Ms. Brenda’s cell phone, but there was no answer there either.  Now, some people are like me, and never answer there phone, and this is just expected. Annoying, but expected.  However, between the two kids, we have been going to Ms. Brenda for almost four years, and she ALWAYS answers every text and phone call.  So, I’m now gripping the steering wheel, clenching my jaw, and imagining that Ms. Brenda has had a stroke, or heart attack, and there are children screaming and crawling all over the place, banging each other in the head with toys, while my sweet Cora is caught in the cross fire.  Then I imagine worse, a murder – suicide, where the same is going on with the children, just more blood in the mix, and obviously more laundry for everyone.  So, I make a detour, and as I approach Ms. Brenda’s house, I start to formulate a plan for how I’m going to handle this devastating situation –

1. I will call 911 and tell them that toddlers are throwing toys and they seem VERY hungry and possibly have poopy diapers that need to be changed by medical professionals with extra oxygen and masks.  Bring lots of masks.  Consider Hazmat suits.

2. Mention to 911 that there are dead people here.

3. At some point, I will need to abandon this chaos to run out to the mailbox and find out what the address is (to the place I’ve been sending my kids for close to four years) so the dispatchers can get out there to change diapers and feed the children, and remove bodies and such.

4. After I abandon the chaos, I will have to talk myself into going back to the chaos.

5. Somehow, I will need to find out where Brenda keeps the parent contact information so I can get these kids out of here. There is NO way I can manage all these kids on my own, with the murder suicide situation going on.

I’ve gotta say, at no point did I start to wonder if my mommy intuition had gone a little awry…until I pulled into the driveway and saw two other parents’ cars parked there.  I will say for a split second, I thought “oh, maybe they were thinking what I was thinking!”…..I am now willing to call that a RTP – Ridiculous Thought Process.

As I got out of my car, my anxiety starting to ease, I saw a mom, dad, and five year old walking out of the house smiling. I took my finger off the 9 on my phone as little five year old Jacob started telling me that he had T-Ball tonight, and he was “weally scawed, because thewe wew no wights in da pawk” .  A minor emergency, but I’m sure he’ll feel like calling 911 later, so I get it.  Then his mom told me that Cora was having a really fussy morning, but that Brenda had just put her down for a nap.   “Great! so she IS ALIVE!” I wanted to say.  But instead I said “yeah, she had a rough night, probably just over tired”.  Then the mom asked what I was doing there at 9 am.  “Ohhhhh”. Could I tell her I had a minor lapse in realistic thinking ability, or had just spent 20 minutes in the midst of a RTP?  Better to maintain appearances, so I just said what I thought a good and sane mother would say - “Oh, I was just driving by (in the next town) and couldn’t pass up an opportunity to see my sweet baby.” 

In the end, rational or not, there was no way I could have gone and been productive without first ruling out a murder-suicide, heart attack, stroke, aneurysm, and narcolepsy.  I can’t say it was a completely wasted trip either.  I learned that I really should start answering my phone (I know who you are rolling your eyes, stop it!!), because if I’m ever lying on my own floor with screaming kids all around me, and not answering my phone, no-one will think much of it.  Chances are, if that is happening, I’ll just be taking a nap though, or at least pretending to.

I was also reminded today that child care providers are absolute saints.  As I imagined running into Ms. Brenda’s and taking over what was going to be a horrible situation, I saw myself as something of a super hero.  Then I remembered, “That is what she does ALL DAY, EVERY DAY”, minus any additional adult medical emergencies going on in the background, but still, you get my drift.  She’s the woman who is cradling Cora, while reading to a 9 month old, and wiping the nose of 15 month old, all while calming the nerves of a 30 year old who just happened to blow in from the rain to complain that she wasn’t answering her phone – sheesh.  We need more Ms. Brendas. 

So, I have no advice on when to listen to your intuition, and when to ignore it.  I suppose you do what you have to do to calm your nerves, and sometimes that means being a little extreme and a little irrational, but isn’t that what being a good mom looks like a lot of the time?  I think so.  Irrational is subjective anyway, I say.  But don’t listen to me, listen to your own intuition, of course.