07.02.09
Another day, another headache
I occasionally find myself sitting in the car, in traffic or at a stoplight, and I start looking around at the people in the cars around me. For the most part people are doing what I’m doing — sitting there bored or turning the dials on the A/C or radio. But every now and then I’ll see a woman behind the wheel crying or a couple in the front seat arguing. In these moments I feel jerked back to reality, where life is going on in people around me even if though I don’t see it or am not part of it. Mentally, it’s like when I’m not with someone I have hit the “pause” button, and then I hit “play” when we’re back together. It is so easy to become so self-absorbed that we aren’t able to see (or don’t take the time to see) the human condition around us.
But it’s not all our fault for not seeing what’s going on around us, it’s also the fault of the other side for making us think everything’s OK. We ask people how are they doing and they say “fine.” People go out of their way to make others think they’re “fine.” I go out of my way to make others think I’m “fine.” And, really, most of the time I am fine. I’m very blessed and life treats me good. Life has it’s stressful moments but I’m a survivor. I have — my favorite phrase — intestinal fortitude. So while certain life stresses would break some, I thrive.
But these last few weeks I’ve just been beat down. My precious, 6-year-old first-born son has been dealing with migraine headaches for almost a year and nothing we’ve tried has helped. We put him to bed early so he gets plenty of rest. (Even his 3-year-old brother gets to stay up later!) We fix him bacon with breakfast every morning so he gets a good boost of protein. We’ve tried drinking Gatorade for breakfast in case the headaches were caused by dehydration. We took away caffeinated drinks since caffeine or caffeine withdrawals can cause headaches. The neurologist prescribed a mild antihistimine that’s been proven to work with migraines. It kinda seemed to work at first but not for long. So we doubled the dose and he had to learn to swallow a pill. The ear/nose/throat doctor put in a third set of ear tubes to see if sinus pressure in the head or ears was the problem. Didn’t help. Two weeks ago the doctor recommended we try a different medication — after he’d had a headache nearly every day for 2 weeks and three bad ones in one day. On day 12 of the medicine he had an allergic reaction and currently his body is covered in a rash. We stopped the medicine of course, but it could take up to two weeks for the reaction to go away.
Now they’ve ordered an MRI, but because his chart has already been sent to the transcriptionist and because of the July 4 holiday it will be at least Monday before they can call to schedule. I just want to help my baby not have headaches and be able to live a normal life. I’ve knelt by his bed at night and held his precious head and prayed that God would take the headaches away from him and give them to me. I feel so helpless going about life as usual — work, home, meals, laundry, kids’ parties, vacations — as if nothing is wrong, while my child has a problem. At work, I watch the clock and the phone constantly — the clock anticipating the end of the day when I go get him, see how his day was and get him home before a headache sets in, and the phone out of fear the summer daycare will call telling me he’s sick or he doesn’t feel well enough to stay.
I feel like I’m a bad mom, as if I’m not doing enough. I worry that people think that I’m a bad mom because I’m not able to fix this, or that I’m not taking this seriously enough because I take him to summer care and I go to work. But certainly no one really thinks I’m a bad mom? It’s just a reaching a point where it’s hard to function as if nothing’s wrong even though I don’t think there’s anything I could be doing differently.
And to think, you thought I was “fine.”
05.31.09
Let Them Be Little
They played this song at Finn’s preschool graduation last year but I had pretty much forgotten about it until a friend referenced it on her blog last week. If you’re a mom whose children are growing up too quickly, get the tissues handy before you watch/listen. I fight the tears back pretty good until about the 2 1/2 minute mark, when a boy about the age of Finn is walking away from his mom and the image fades into the image of a grown son. I lose it there every time because someday all too soon it will be that day for me. If I listened to this song everyday I just might do things a little different — expect less from them, enjoy them more and just let them by little.
Kindergarten is over
Wow, kindergarten flew by waaayy too fast. Finn “graduated” kindergarten the week before last and I just can’t believe it’s over. I say “graduated” because while they had an awards ceremony, they didn’t wear little caps and gowns like I did at kindergarten graduation, so I hesitate to call it a graduation. However, they had an awards ceremony structured a lot like a graduation, and at the end presented to all of us proud parents the kindergarten Class of 2009 and the high school class of 2021.
They sent home a folder with the title “Look How Much I’ve Grown” and in addition to comparing a photo of him from the first week of kindergarten with a photo from the last week and seeing how much he has changed physically, the pages showed the progression of both his handwriting and his knowledge of words and sentences. When school started, he wrote his name in large, clunky, capital letters. Now, he writes it correctly with a capital ‘F’ and lower case ‘inn’ neatly after. A writing page for each month showed his progression from simple words in the fall to simple sentences in spring.
When my sister-in-law, who is a teacher, told me that by the end of the kindergarten he would be reading, I was skeptical. Not in his ability to learn necessarily, but just couldn’t comprehend how that could happen. But it did, and if I hadn’t witnessed it I may not have believed it. He came home the first full week of school and could read all of his color words, and as he added more and more sight words he was reading short sentences, then sounding out three letter words, then blending consonants, and reading beginner books. He loves to show off his writing and write words and simple sentences, and it’s just so thrilling for me to observe. I hope all the grades don’t go by this fast ….
04.29.09
It starts in kindergarten
This past weekend at a birthday party with Finn, I found myself quite troubled by all the talk about boyfriends, girlfriends, he doesn’t like me, I don’t like her, etc. It’s kindergarten. Can’t they all just get along and play? I sat by a mom who’s daughter was Finn’s girlfriend several months ago until they “broke up.” I knew about this because he came home around Valentine’s Day talking about the girl and even bringing home valentines from her. At the time, I thought it was cute and fun. A few weeks later he came home saying the little girl wasn’t his girlfriend anymore. He seemed mildly bummed about it but quickly (like 5 minutes later) forgot all about it. I asked him how he knew she was no longer his girlfriend. He said: Because she told him.
I hadn’t given it much more thought until this past weekend’s party. Other moms were talking about which girls were the girlfriends of which boys, how many girlfriends a certain boy had, how their daughter used to like this boy but now she likes this other boy, and so on. They all thought it was so cute. And it kind of is. But some kids seemed to be taking it too far and being mean to boys or girls they don’t “like.” The mom of Finn’s “ex-girlfriend” talked about one girl in another kindergarten class who started this “club” and she tells the other girls that she’s the most popular girl and bosses them around. Can we say the 5-year-old version of Mean Girls?
The whole experience just broke my heart because he’s 5! I think back to when I was 5, and we had the whole boyfriend/girlfriend stuff too, and we chased boys at recess and visa versa. My “boyfriend” most of that time was a red-headed, freckled-face boy named Junior. But I don’t remember kids being so catty and serious. I just want my kids to enjoy being children and not stress over silly stuff like this. I’m thinking, though, there’s very little I can do about it.
04.28.09
Love Thy Neighbor
I met one of my neighbors today — the ones that moved next door to us at the end of last summer and who I’ve waved at in the yard but never actually spoke to. It turns out that our oldest boys are in kindergarten together (same school, but not the same teacher) and we both have 3 yo boys too. The boys recognized each other and Sam, the nextdoor neighbor boy, came over to talk to Finn at the same time the 3yo neighbor boy came over and got a toy out of our garage. It was so cute!
All 4 boys played with our ride-on toys and balls while Ellie, the neighbor mom, and I talked a bit. Next thing we know, Finn and Sam have gone in our house. Finn asked him in to play Mario Kart. If I hadn’t just got in from work and had to figure out supper, baths, reading, etc. in a few short hours, I’d gladly have let Sam stay and play — and offered for him to come back another time. I never had a neighborhood friend like that so I’m glad that our boys will have that opportunity.
03.20.09
How Finn lost his first tooth eating a lemon
Finn lost his first tooth tonight!! It’s been loose for a while and a few weeks ago really loosened up while he was eating corn on the cob.
Well, he loves lemons and tonight while eating some lemon wedges for dessert he asked me if his mouth was bleeding because there was blood on the lemon. I, of course, immediately thought of his tooth. It was still there but was much more loose and bleeding a little. He wanted to finish his lemons, so I told him he could but it would still bleed, was he ok with that? He just wanted to finish that one.
Well, if you’ve ever eaten lemons or oranges — any pulpy fruit — you know that you have to use your teeth to pull the pulp away from the rind. He continued to eat the lemon, and I couldn’t even watch because the way he was eating it I could just imagine the tooth pulling forward and it made me cring. Next thing I knew, what looked like a lemon seed popped out of his mouth towards me and landed by my leg on the couch. I picked it up, and sure enough it was his tooth!
The first thing he wanted to do was look in the mirror. Then he wanted to call Nana but I knew she was at a dinner, so he called Aunt Nanny (my sister) instead. I found a neat little jar to put the tooth in and we took a few pictures of his snaggle-tooth smile.
As I’m typing this the tooth fairy is trying to scrounge up some money to leave under his pillow. She wasn’t quite prepared for this to happen tonight! But she’s so, so excited it did!!
03.09.09
It just disappears
Finn has been really interested in the science stuff he’s been learning at school. A few weeks ago he was telling us all about solids, liquids and gases, and he would put cups of water in the freezer to make ice and then set it out and let it melt back into a liquid.
Last week they learned about the water cycle and he brought home this poster he made and used it to explain the water cycle to me:
There’s a puddle. It goes up into the sun and comes into the cloud. It just d-pears (disappears). You can’t even see it.
It (the cloud) gets heavier, heavier, heavier. It starts to rain. It gets a puddle again and that’s it.
Not bad for a 5-year-old.
03.02.09
Tuggin’ at my heart strings
I was so proud of myself when I didn’t cry on Finn’s first day of kindergarten. I felt very emotional about it but I didn’t break down. Apparently I chose to die a slow death because I feel that emotional “I could cry if I let myself” feeling every time I drop him off.
