Some days you feel like a good mom. Lunches are made, homework is done, kids are bathed and in bed on time and it feels not only like you got everything done, but like you know them. You connected with each other them. You feel like you have accomplished what God had planned for you in their lives. And then there is, well, the other 363 or so days a year. Or maybe, that’s just me. But then you have other nights where you are scrambling to throw together remotely nutritious lunches they probably won’t eat anyways, realizing at 10pm you never asked about homework and can’t remember the last time they all had a bath. You feel disconnected with them and at a complete loss as to what it is you are supposed to be doing in their lives. There are lots of those days. At least, for me. And then, there are days like I had this week. Sitting in the emergency room at a rural hospital near my house, rubbing my dehydrated and flu-ish Monster’s back when I realize I can feel his spine distinctly through his shirt. And I think ‘has that always felt like that?’ And lifting the shirt of his fevered little back I see that he’s like…. fuzzy hairy. And I think “did he always have this much hair on him?” And I look at his ribs and think ‘how much skinnier is he than usual right now?’ I can tell them he weighed 12kg at his last trip to emergency last week, but before that? I stopped weighing my kids a while ago. I don’t…
Today, Monster turns 4. As in, my baby is 4. I don’t have a baby anymore. There are no more cribs or diapers in my house. I am so okay with that. Yesterday, we had an Angry Bird’s party for 9 toddlers and I watched as my baby played and talked and opened cards. Instead of gifts, he raised almost $150 for the Soldier On Fund. You have not been reading long if you think I made these. Check out https://www.facebook.com/groups/108334602588902/ Today on his actual day of birth, I rostered in his class. Let me just get something out there. I hate rostering. Seriously, I may be a terrible parent for admitting it, but I don’t like a room full of preschoolers. I don’t like craft time or centers. I don’t look forward to the ‘opportunity to be involved in my child learning experience at school’. I just…. don’t. But it was his birthday today and I smiled through the singing, the gym time and the cutting out of 25 cardboard stockings. During circle time, I noticed that all the kids have their pictures taped to the carpet where they sit during class. Almost all of them. Along with a couple other kids, Monster’s picture is taped to one of the chairs beside the carpet and that’s where he sits. I had noticed this before, but I took my opportunity there to ask the teacher how come he sits in the chair instead of on the carpet. And the perpetually happy teacher (aren’t all preschool teachers simply the happiest people? I thank God people like them were…
Last week I took my kids in for their yearly physical at the Pediatrician’s office. And to show what good a mom I am, it turns out when they typed into the computer they learned that my oldest hadn’t been there since 2007. 4 years, no check-up. What? He’s healthy….. don’t judge me. So anyways, they were all weighed and measured and the obligatory giggle was had over their growth or lack there of, and then they were poked and prodded a little and given a clean bill of health. Except when the Doctor is putting his stethoscope on Monster’s chest, he takes a closer look at his neck. He rubs his hand over a spot a few times, then bends Monster’s head to look closer. At first, I’m a little puzzled. Then I remember…. Monster has a white blotch of skin on his neck and shoulder by his collarbone on one side. It’s been there…. for years I think. It came around the wax spilling incident and in my head I think I thought that was the cause of it. But the Doctor dismisses that idea when I say it since Monster never had any wound or injury from the wax that would cause a scar like that. Besides, it’s not a scar. At least, as far as he can tell. It’s a lack of pigment. Now, my kids are white. WHITE. Not like, yes, they are Caucasian white. Like HOLY CRAP YOU LIGHT UP A ROOM WITH YOUR SKIN white. Freckles doesn’t tan, his freckles connect. Drama…
