Torn

I'm having a hard time lately. What it is is that I'm torn between wanting to protect him with my instinct yet not wanting to OVER protect him. I want him to be able to lead as normal a life as possible, despite his disabilities. But the mama in me will not allow me to release my grasp on him b/c I know that he depends on me to take care of him.

I can usually tell when Jayden is going to have a seizure from the very moment that he wakes up. Sometimes it could be the color of his skin (it would just look dull and unhealthy). Other times it could be the look in his eyes. Or sometimes, he's just very whiny and clingy and yawns a lot. Last week, we got him dressed for school and he was whiny and clingy and his eyes looked a bit droopy. I contemplated keeping him home. However, he was walking and talking just fine so I felt like I was just being over protective. Besides, we had some errands to run in New Orleans while he was at school. So we dropped him off and he went into the cafe with no fight. 45 minutes later (we were already in New Orleans, 30 minutes away from his school) my phone rang. I told my husband, "I bet that's Jayden's teacher." Sure enough, it was. And he'd had a seizure. We immediately got on the road to go and pick him up. He was still out of it when we got there and then slept for 5 hours when he got home. I was so upset with myself for sending him when I knew that he wasn't ok that morning.

Well, this morning I questioned bringing him. His skin looked fine, his eyes were fine. He was only slightly whiny. But he was taking very small steps and just not really "with it" this morning. I asked him if he was okay and he said yes. I contemplated keeping him home. But then I had to rethink that because he missed school yesterday to go to the Dr. So, after him making me chase him through the house to put on his jacket (and he laughed the entire time!), we got in the truck and headed to school. He's been there for over an hour now and still no phone call, so that's a great thing.

But how do I handle this. How do I keep my mom instinct from sheltering him. And then how do I overcome the guilt when I ignore that instinct and then something goes wrong?? UGH.