Medical short stories

1)    About a month ago, my son’s finger happened to be in the way of a very heavy door. He smashed his fingernail, and for the past month we have watched as his nail turned to a very unsightly bluish-purple. Yesterday, it finally fell off, to the complete shock of my son. He cried, and begged for a band aid. Dr. Dad administered the bandage, but every once in a while he notices, “hey, my finger kind of hurts,” and gets upset again. Today, as we were sitting down to dinner, Grayson noticed his finger was hurting and began to do that in between whining and crying sound. We told him that we would pray for his finger to feel better, and he immediately folded his arms in faith. Dr. Dad gave the prayer, and as soon as we said amen, Grayson looked at us bewildered, and said, “it still hurts!”



I think I know what the next topic of family home evening will be…





2)  Since Grayson associates doctors with being sick, he calls Dr. Pepper: Sick Soda. We've tried to explain that Dr. Pepper doesn't have anything to do with being sick, but you know how kids and their little imaginations are.

   Barry came down with the stomach flu this weekend. Today he sadly explained to the kids why he wouldn’t be joining us for church, he wasn’t feeling well. As I was driving the kiddos to church, Grayson said, “Mommy, Daddy was naughty.”


Of course I asked, “why?”


“Because he drank sick soda, and now he’s not feeling well.”

What do you say to that?

One of those days....

    Today we were scheduled to get Easter pictures of the kiddos at Walmart. Since I was going alone (BRAVE SOUL I AM!), Barry sat Grayson down and told him if he was good for pictures, Mommy would buy him a toy (Bribery- the best parenting). So we got to the studio, and Grayson was AWESOME! INCREDIB LE! He was adorable in every picture, a perfect smile, a little studmuffin. He even got Jaye to smile for her only smiling picture. I was so proud I couldn’t wait to go to the toy section.



And then…


    He had to go potty... right as I sat down with the photographer to edit the photos and choose my prints. The photographer stayed with Jaye while I ran him to the bathroom. Now, Grayson is at that age where he is mortified to use the Girl’s bathroom because… it’s for girls. As he noticed I was tugging him past the boy’s bathroom, he dropped to his knees and started whining, “I don’t want to go to the girls bathroom! It’s for girls!” I had to drag him in and he started wailing. I ripped down his pants and sat him on the toilet and explained that I couldn’t send him in alone to the boys bathroom when there were strangers there, it could be scary. I’m pretty sure he didn’t hear a word I said through the sobs, but all the women using ALL the other stalls sure heard me. Finally, after two or so minutes of coercion, I got fed up and said, “Your only other choice is to hold it until we get home. What do you want to do?”


    At this time, I think his body decided what it wanted to do. He peed. All. Over. The. Place. He just kept going, all the while bawling his head off, while I’m shouting at him to get it in the toilet. Those poor women got quite the entertainment, but we still had to go back and order the darned pictures. I told Grayson that he would just have to sit in his wet pants (wow, this makes me sound kind of terrible), while I ordered pictures. So, I sat him in the basket next to the computer and he cried for about ten minutes while the dang lady tried to sell me the most outrageously expensive photo packages they offer. Grayson stood up and started pulling off his underwear… in front of everyone. Luckily I remembered I had a pull-up in the diaper bag. So, my son sat happily in the basket wearing a green dress shirt, vest, tie, and pull-up. That’s it.


    As I was paying for the pictures and apologizing to the woman, Grayson tugged on my shirt and asked, “Can we go get a toy now?”


It was a long… loud… tearful… drive home.

Ricks: The Musical

I have a habit of turning everything I do into song. Tonight, I was trying to get the kiddos in bed and started singing:

“It’s time for bed, so come on get in bed!
It’s time for bed, come on you sleepy head!”


While I was repeating my "part", Grayson unexpectedly started marching around with his toys singing (the same notes I was!):
“I can’t, I can’t do that.
I can’t, I can’t do that!
I can’t go to bed!”


It was like I was living in a REAL musical where people randomly break out into the same song! It was the perfect moment.


Now if I could just get him to sing different lyrics, like: “Yes Mommy, I listen to everything you say…”

rough morning

     I dared take my two kids around to the local yard sales today. Surprisingly, they were great, until we hit this huge fund-raising rummage sale at a local business. My kids joyfully dug through the bins of dirty toys while I sat on a dirty couch and watched them. They played for several minutes before I announced it was time to go. And Grayson threw a fit. A big one. I had to literally drag him across the parking lot while Jaye whined in my arms. Forcing my child into his car seat, I gave the big mommy lecture on how is behavior was disappointing to me. He looked at me with those big brown eyes and asked if we were still going to play his new bowling game when we got home. As punishment, I said “no”.



We drove in silence for a few minutes.




Grayson finally spoke up. “Mommy…”


“Yes?”


“You broke my heart.”




Where did he learn that one?!?! I didn’t know whether to laugh or feel really guilty. I broke a three-year-old’s heart! What a tragic moment in parenthood.




...But we still didn’t play the bowling game.

Random funny stuff...

Grayson has turned into one of those children who rambles incessantly, constantly telling us some new story he made up. His newest story was an epic tale about Santa Claus. Santa was trying to deliver his presents but he fell out of the sleigh and got stuck in the snow. And who should come and save poor snow-ridden Santa?



Jesus.






‘Atta boy. I’m glad he understands Christ’s role… with a little Christmas flare thrown in! haha


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New Story:

So my twelve year old brother was out of town when Jaye had that weird allergic reaction. When Chris (my brother) got home he asked to see pictures of her so, I pulled up my blog. He looked and said (very dramatically) "OH! SHE LOOKS HORRIBLE!!!"

yeah... he was looking at our family picture at the header of my blog. I hadn't even scrolled down to the allergy pictures yet!

I guess it's time to put a new family photo up.

One of those scary mommy moments

     This morning, Jaye got in bed with me around 5. I noticed her eyes looked puffy, I assumed it was from her spill yesterday. When we all got up around 7, I saw that not only was she puffy but there was a weird welty rash on her face. Upon inspection, I found the rash covered her entire body. I called the Doctor to see if I could fit her in earlier (we had a regular check up at 10:30) but they said no, mornings were for “healthy patients”.

(Took this on my cell in the morning)

     Her face kept getting more red, so I decided to take a shower so I would be ready to go to the doc. By the time I got out of the shower, her arms and legs were beet red, and her fingers and toes were dark blue. I was terrified, called the doctor again, and asked if I should take her to the emergency room. The receptionist told me to bring her in right away, so still dripping wet I packed my kids in the car and rushed over to the doc. I couldn't even get Jaye's shoes on her feet were so swollen!

     When I walked into the office, the receptionist shouted out (edited), “OH MY GOSH!” and kept apologizing that she didn’t tell me to come in sooner. Her reaction was a little ominous, I was starting to freak out thinking I would have to rush her to the emergency room and the news was going to be horrific. But the doctor checked her out, and basically said he had no idea what had set her off, but it was definitely an allergic reaction to... something. So vague. I hadn’t given her anything unusual to eat, so he told me to watch for another reaction (as if I could miss it!) and try to remember what I fed her. She got a steroid shot to bring down the swelling, and some liquid steroid stuff for the next few days.


    So now what am I supposed to do? Feed her peanuts to see if it happens again? I feel stuck not knowing what caused it. But even though it is frustrating, I am soooo grateful she is alright.


And grateful we didn’t have to fork out a million bucks in emergency room costs.

(Here she is a few hours after the steroid shot and the swelling is all gone. She still looks terrible, poor girl.)
 

There is beauty all around...

    So remember that awesome family home evening lesson I gave yesterday?



    Well today my kids were playing on my bed and Grayson pushed Jaye. She flew ever so perfectly right into the corner of my dresser drawer. Now, she has a nice little slice under her eye and it looks like it’s going to be a black eye. I’m so glad the concept of Love at home sunk in for my son! But I have to give him a break… he wasn’t doing it to be mean. He was “being a ninja”.


    Jaye was wailing so I lost it and started crying, and Grayson tried to calm me down until he saw the blood then he started crying. So we all sat on the couch holding each other and cried for about ten minutes. I guess that counts as love at home, right?