2008, here we are. Most years I’ve got a list of Resolutions longer than my around-the-house to-do list. This year? Not so much. I spent all of 2007 with resolutions, lists, things to change, finding myself, surviving myself, etc. So, 2008 is all about Maintenance. I’m fairly on top of things right now. Thanks to medication, red wine, caffeine, running and dark chocolate (not all at the same time, mind you…though that might be interesting) my children aren’t totally driving me mad and I feel relatively sane. For the moment. And thanks to six months of therapy last year, I, of course, now have ALL the answers, TOTALLY know who I am, and am good to go!

OK, so one Resolution I have (look, I said I wouldn’t make a LIST, I didn’t say that I wouldn’t have ANY) is to get to bed earlier. Easy enough, right? Should be. My job requires me to do things like get up at 5:30 in the morning and run in the rain, then come home, shower, get everyone dressed and fed and out the door to preschool, errands, play dates, ready for music class, ready to do loads of laundry, play Lego’s and John Deeres, etc. It isn’t a hard life, that’s for sure. But it is an at-times hard job and it does start early. I’m committing to my running routine with Andrea and my writing routine. Therefore, I – before all of you – vow to get up MWF at 5:30 (well, I hit the alarm…so 5:40, at the latest) to run and then TTH get up by 6am (gotta “sleep in” a little bit) to work on my award-winning literature. (It’s all about Visualization: if you believe it enough, your dreams CAN come true. Thank you, Oprah and The Secret).

My other Resolution is to ALWAYS trust my Mommy Instincts. So, if you’ll recall our boys were ooberly sick right before Christmas. Zachary had the whole not-being-able-to-catch-his-breath-and-breathe-normally thing going on. If you’ll also recall, I was not convinced that the doctors were really giving me answers and/or explaining clearly what the problem was and what the treatment plan would be. Also, remember, that on one Sunday evening, we called the nurse for help. She informed us that if his breathing was between 50-60 times per minute that we needed to get him to Emergency at Children’s Hospital. At that moment, we counted 44 breaths in a minute. The next morning, at the doctor’s office, however, their accurate machine-dealy counted 52 times in a minute. OK, now you’re refreshed on the details.

SO…this morning at preschool drop-off the one Mom-friend that I’ve made there (Angela) informed me that her little girl, Emma (two months older than Zachary), spent three days at Children’s Hospital because she just couldn’t get a breath, her little lungs and tummy were pumping all the time, she’d cough so hard she’d throw up, she had a fever for days…sound familiar?!!!! THE EXACT SAME THING. Angela, tired of getting the run-around from HER doctors, decided on that SAME Sunday night, to trust her Mommy Instinct and take Emma to the Emergency Room at Children’s. At the hospital, they counted little Emma breathing 45 times per minute (that EXACT same night, we’d counted Zach doing 44…I know I already provided you with the facts, I just need to reiterate, to stress how crazy this is). The doctors took one look at Emma and her stats and said, “She’s staying.” According to the doctor’s at Children’s Hospital, NO kiddo Zachary and Emma’s age should be breathing more than 30 times in one minute. Spending days breathing and working hard, like ZJ and Emma had been, is way too hard for their little bodies. The docs informed Angela, that pumping like that can exhaust their systems so much that they could just eventually up and quit. The lungs, heart, everything/anything could just plain old poop out.

So, to remind you, (yet, again) the morning after we counted 44, at the doc’s office, they counted Zach’s breaths-per-minute at 52. They gave Zach steroids and sent us home, and it just didn’t sit right with me. I just didn’t feel like they were doing enough or…at the very least, not communicating what the problem really was. And now to find out, that Zach was in WORSE shape that morning than Emma had been when they checked into the hospital, that he’d been going through the EXACT same thing and doctors at Children’s Hospital kept her for THREE days to help her with her breathing so that her organs wouldn’t shut down…that we would have seen Angela with Emma in the ER on the SAME night going through the SAME thing (RSV, it turns out/Reactive Airway Disease, etc.)…it’s just nuts to me. To think that we just watched Zach working that hard for days to breathe…thank God he’s a little fighter. Obviously, I’m VERY thankful that we didn’t have to go through the hospital thing, and thankfully, the treatments that we did receive from the doctors worked and Zachary was fine and IS fine. But still!!! Now, I know to ALWAYS trust that Mommy Instinct. And if I’m worried that people are thinking that I’m just One of Those Moms…well, I’ll except that title with pride.