Adventures in Parenting - The Shots

How many adults does it take to give an immunization?

I love my son, unconditionally.   He has irrational fears that are part of his condition and as a mother it is heartbreaking.  Spiders, clowns, insects with wings, and getting shots.  When it is time to get shots, we have to plan, for weeks.

Today was our yearly physicals and we knew that there were going to be shots today.  So we have been planning.  They say plan your work and work your plan.  That works when dealing rationally.

For a month we have been talking about how we needed to get shots to be prepared for 7^th grade.  Breakfast table talk this morning was about manning-up.  I picked him up from school today and the talk in the car on the way over was in preparation and repeating our manning-up mantra.

Preparation is for fools.

My appointment is over, I go in to his exam room, and he is already shaking in his paper shorts.  As the exam wears on he is vibrating.  I leave the room for the personal part of the exam.  I barge back in when he starts screaming.   The doctor mentioned the shots.

As an hour woefully passed, I tried the soft touch, the mean mommy, the reasoning parent, the I’m going to call your father threats, all to no avail.  At points he was so loud and wailed so badly, other doctors and nurses came in, worried I was abusing a child in their building.

In the end, it took me and a very large, strong nurse to hold him down in my lap, while our nurse gave him three shots in his arm.  Once done, he was calm, stopped crying, and picked up his things to leave as if nothing happened.

I’m sorry Mrs. Friedrich, we really don’t know why you have severe G.E.R.D. issues.   No, we can’t up your medication any higher.  

Viewpoint

Do you see what you think you see?

This one contains no hidden meanings.  If you see one word vs. another it doesn't mean you are left brain/right brain, it doesn't mean you have a tumor, it doesn't mean you aren't of a genius i.q.  We all see things differently.  

Sometimes, all it takes is another person for us to appreciate what was once hidden from our view.

Life Is A Stage

It is not an easy subject, our own mortality.  


Those who know me, know I have a best friend who lives back in Jersey.  We have been friends since we were in the 6th grade.  We have lived in each others's lives for almost as long as we can remember.  Neither of us were blessed with sisters, which God rectified by giving us each other.  


We have walked a long path together.  Teenage trials and tribulations, growing in to womanhood, finding our soul mates, finding ourselves, marriages, the birth of children, separations, divorces, the death of her parents, the death of my dad, my scare with cancer, my moving away, and then moving away again.


Although  our boys are 6 years apart, they are friends.  They are both exceptional needs, so both the boys and she & I have followed similar paths.


We can not talk for months and pick right back up where we left off, it is what sisters do.  So when my cell phone rang tonight and I saw it was her, it was no surprise.  


Last we had talked, she was going for another series of test.  She has been battling something unknown for the better part of 3 years now.  It started as annoyances, grew to agitation, and now finally doctors are paying attention.  


It may be too late.


We won't know more until after the next series of tests this Friday, and then the inevitable nail-biting week long wait until results are determined.  What is for sure is it is incurable.  What is not known is the stage.  


Stage is a funny word.  It has so many meanings.  Stage is a place where the spotlight is lit and mere mortals can transport you to far off worlds.  Take you back in time, tell you a story for a little while, and then leave you feeling better than before they started.


If only stage meant that now.  Now, it is a means to determine the end of mortality.  


She is by no means taking this lightly, nor is she resolved that it is the end.

Her parting words before hanging up were, "What are you sad for?  I'm not going anywhere, I've got kids to live for.  'm going to fight this and if it means getting a transplant, then that is what I will do."


I love my sister.

Word Clouds and You

You, are all important to me!  

Although I may not say it often, and even if I forget to post frequently, know that I do appreciate the friendships, the laughter, and the support.

Another Adventure on the Short Bus

A while back I wrote about the adventures we experienced when the regular morning driver had to take a leave of absence and they couldn't seem to back fill the spot without making the kids miss the first hour of school.

Today's adventure was with the new morning driver.  I don't think we will be seeing him much longer.  It takes a special kind of patience to work with kids with extra-ordinary needs.  He doesn't have it, or at least, enough of it.

At 12:10 today I get a phone call from kiddo's school therapist.  During today's scheduled session he related a story to her about this morning's bus ride in to school and he has told her the story.  He wants to speak to me directly, because he has been upset all morning, has had trouble concentrating, and no one has listened to the story. 

Seems that an altercation erupted between his seat-mate and the younger girl sitting behind them.  She was hitting the other boy with a Barbie, a piece fell in to his lap, he retaliated by throwing the broken piece to the back of the bus and she whacked him with her hand.  It was at this point the bus driver finally noticed.

This may have been the bus driver's first time handling something like this, who knows.  In any case, he took sides instead of diffusing and allowing teachers to settle when they arrived at school.  

My son, not one to see an injustice be done, chimes in with his observations on what the girl did.  At this point the bus driver made a critical error in judgement.  

He turned to my son and said, "shut up, I'm not talking to you!"  I'll take "Can I have my pink slip now?" for 200, Alex.

The driver proceeds to keep arguing with the other boy.  My son chimes in again.  Driver tells him to butt out and why was he still talking?  The other boy answers, "well, you told him to shut up and that was wrong!"

Did I mention this is all going on while he is still driving down the street, not pulled over to the side of the road?  

Driver turns to the other kid and says, "I'm the bus driver, I can do anything I want!" Game, set, match.

Therapist gets back on the phone, says she is on it, will question the driver when he returns for afternoon pick-up, but that a classroom aide has offered to drive both boys home today until we can get all the facts.  We agree to have the aide drive him home and we will speak again once she gets more information.

She calls me back to relate his side of the story, which to his credit, matches the boys' story.  

I wish I could call the bus company just one time for a good reason.  Today wasn't it.  

I get a call back from the supervisor after he gets all the facts and has a meeting with the driver.  We agree everyone is human and makes mistakes.  Driver will be giving the whole bus an apology, has reprimand in file, and there are no third strikes in their system.

Everyone is human, everyone makes mistakes, but no one talks to my son that way.   A lesson we teach in our house, and reinforce all the time is that we all have a right to be mad, but we don't have a right to be angry.  We all have a right to respect, and that we all have a responsibility for our actions and our words.  If he has to abide by them, so does the driver.

I don't think the driver realizes he has to face me tomorrow morning.  I promise not to say one word.  There is no need for words when you possess the look.

Life As A Silly Parent

I love being silly, cutting up, and just letting loose.  This is especially true when the kiddo is in the same kind of mood.  A most endearing quality is that he has inherited my quirky sense of what is funny.  We enjoy watching old Marx Brothers movies together and Three Stooges episodes.  Anything that will make us have the kinds of giggles that turn in to belly laughs.

Tonight, little man and I had errands to run and while in the car, from the backseat I hear "excuzzzze meeeee, who ahrrre you please?", in the worst French accent imaginable.

One glance in the rear view mirror and I can see the silly has started and I better catch-up quickly.

I try my best Russian accent, aka Boris and Natasha mashed up in to one person.  "Vy, hello dere.  I deed not zee you zitting dere."

We proceed to converse in our horrible broken accents, barely understanding each other for a few blocks, until I am informed that my Russian is starting to sound like French and he is "the onlyeee Freunch per-sonne in za carrre."

So, I break out my Brooklyn.

"Zo, jus who do uze tink you iz, huh?  Who let uze into my cah?  You ain't Americunn, where you from anywayze?"

"Me, oh well my par-ents are from Frannnce and ze brought me heeeere when I was young-er, so I am an Americannnnne."

"Yeah, well I don't know no body who talks like dat from America.  You must be one of dem French Fries!"

We are giggling and mimicking bad accents all over the East Bay.  I am throwing my best Brooklyn/Jersey at him, and he is trying his best to keep up the French accent.  He makes false bravado threats in the French kid voice about how he is "ze best American who speaks ze Freunch he knows."

"Oh yeah!   Up ya nose wit a rubba hose!"

I was lucky to keep the car on the road with the guffaws coming from both the front seat and the back seat.  He had no clue what it meant, but it was enough of a vivid statement, that his mental picture put him into fits of laughter.

At the dinner table we explained where the phrase originated, but by then it had lost its shine.

Ya hadda be dere ta unnnastand