The What Ifs Happened Last Night.....

by mommytotwo | More from this Blogger

I often think about the "what ifs" when it comes to my children. What if something happens to one of them, what if something were to happen to me or my husband, what if my boys get their feelings hurt, what if my boys are bullies? The normal things and the normal "what ifs" I think many parents briefly ponder as they raise their children.

Last night, I had a "what if" hit me in a way I wasn't prepared for. My youngest son, who is two, suffers from what we believe to be night terrors. I could be wrong, as this is just our own self-diagnosis. He has had several small incidents of crying or yelling loudly in his sleep and is hard to calm down when we go to him. It takes a lot of cooing and whispering in his ear over and over until he finally wakes up and calms down. It is like he is terrified of something.

Last night was different. So different in fact, that I am still shaken by it. My son started crying and my husband went to check on him. When my husband started rubbing my son's back, telling him everything was fine, my son started screaming. His eyes were closed and his body was tense. My husband picked him up to try to comfort him. I came in to help and my son, eyes closed, reached for me. I assumed that I could rock him in his rocker a bit and he would calm down.

I rocked our son and he continued screaming with his eyes closed. He wouldn't turn his head and he wouldn't relax. I tried to give him his paci in hopes of it calming him. He wouldn't open his mouth, he was screaming through clenched teeth, sound asleep. Nothing we did would wake him. This continued on for some time, until I told my husband through my tears that something just wasn't right with our son. He wouldn't turn his head and he wouldn't stop clenching his entire body.

My husband, in our worry, decided that he was taking our son to the emergency room. He just simply wasn't waking up and wasn't coming out of this terror, or whatever it was. As my husband grabbed the car keys; I passed our son to him. I don't know if it was Daddy's warm body or nice comfy t-shirt that did the trick, but our son immediately snuggled up on him and opened his eyes. He was relaxed and alert! He looked at me and said, "Hi Mommy", completely oblivious to what had just happened with him for the last 15 minutes of his life.

I quickly grabbed him from my husband and just held onto him, still terrified and shaking. I smothered him in kisses and asked if he would like me to rock him for a while. He of course, was all for it! As I rocked him, with his warm little two year old body snuggled up against me, so many "what ifs" went through my mind.

-What if my son had not woken up?

-What if something was seriously wrong with my baby?

-What if my husband hadn't been there with me when this happened?

-What if my four year old was scared from all the screaming?

-What if this keeps happening?

-What if, God forbid, this is an underlying symptom of something more serious?

I snuggled my son closer as these thoughts raced through my mind. Yes, the "what ifs" paid us a visit last night and it was scary. What has this visit taught me as a parent? It taught me to hang on to my children and love them even more. It reminded me that I need to be a bit more patient with my kids, because they are after all just little boys. It reminded me why I married the man I did, he didn't waiver one bit last night as I fell apart. The "what ifs" reminded me that parenting can be scary, frustrating, and it can be sad, but in the end, parenting is incredibly rewarding. The "what ifs" paid me a visit last night to remind me to be thankful for what I have.

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