It was an uncharacteristically chilly Florida morning and the usual degree of dawning chaos seemed elevated with each degree drop on the thermometer. My semblance of routine was thrown, as I was forced to look for the elusive clothing items so rarely required on a Florida school day— socks, close-toed shoes, long pants, and jackets.
I was halfway through the labor some process of socking, shoeing and zipping the second static-haired child, when I felt my readied four-year-old son next to me. And it was either my son’s untypical quietness, or mother’s instinct that caused me to look up from the shoe tying task I was performing and notice that his eyes were wide with the look of speechless fear mother’s everywhere dread reading in the face of any child. He looked pale and was trembling and when I asked him what was wrong, I sensed the answer before he finally gave it,
“I’m sick!” he wailed, in a voice I discerned as panicked and apologetic at the same time.
In a matter of seconds, I did what all mother’s do upon hearing their child utter these words—I scooped him up, hauled him away from all carpet and upholstery, and began to mentally make the adjustments required in the schedule for the entire week to accommodate the chunks that would inevitably spew forth. I kept it to myself, but I felt the bile of panic rise in my own mind as the reality of (inevitably) four sick children began to set in—disrupting school, overriding work deadlines, and unraveling the painstakingly made plans; the realization that my day, and in all likelihood my week, would not turn out the way I expected.
It was then I focused my attention on my son, held my breath, and steeled my own stomach as I watched him bring his hand to his throat with a look of terror and proceed to…hiccup.
Hiccups?
Like a toy slinky, I felt my body and mind uncoil in relief — I would be dealing with a case of hiccups and not a barrage of gastroenteritis. My son, on the other hand, was not so relieved.
“See, Mommy? I’m sick,” he said with the same seriousness and acceptance he had used the day before when pronouncing his pet earthworm, “Darth Vader,” dead.
I summoned the same smile-stifling skills used the previous day at Darth Vader’s funeral and began to explain his condition—no, hiccups don’t mean you are sick—yes, Mommy and Daddy get hiccups, in fact, most everyone gets hiccups at some point—no, they won’t make your head fall off—and, most importantly— no, you won’t die like Darth Vader, because the hiccups will eventually go away.
My son listened and hiccupped through his prognosis and I watched as he began to shed the feelings of fear and panic.
Later that morning, as I did an Internet search on home remedies for hiccups, I thought about the hiccups in life—the sudden, disorienting, and unplanned changes life brings that interrupt expectations and evoke emotions ranging from annoyance, frustration, panic and fear. The hiccups in life are vast—a drop in temperature, misplaced car keys, science projects left until the night before, divorce, realizing mid-change you are out of diapers, menopause, missing the breakfast menu at McDonald’s by three minutes, a headache, a gas pump that won’t take credit cards, not being able to button a pair of pants you wore the week before, a sick child, a bad hair cut, or an unplanned house guest—who stays for a month.
And all too often, my response to hiccups mirrors that of my son. I panic because I don’t recognize the hiccup for what it is, rather, I sense the discomfort, assume the worst—and freak. I’ll forget the very words of assurance I gave my son—that most everyone experiences these same hiccups; I’ll forget that even though it feels like it, hiccups won’t actually make my head fall off; I forget that hiccups are temporary.
As a mother, I am all too aware that hiccups will inevitably revisit my life, which is why I make a mental list of the home remedies for hiccups: taking deep breaths, sucking on crushed ice, eating a spoon full of peanut butter, and my personal favorite—laughter.
