For TT

 

The Lamb

March is definitely coming in like a lamb this year.  

 

 

 

Connection

I do not generally agonize over decisions.  I decided to move to Minnesota five minutes after receiving my first job offer.  In the 20 years since then I have owned five homes, writing offers on all of them the day I toured them.  When I was trying to get pregnant and the donor I had picked out was suddenly unavailable, I went to the cryobank website and picked out a new donor (based mostly on his baby picture) in about 20 minutes.  So the fact that I’m waffling over a decision about pre-school is a new feeling to me. 

Yesterday I had some actual alone time with a mommy friend of mine, a friend who I am getting to know slowly as our four children keep us from having deep, meaningful conversations on any sort of regular basis.  She and I were invited to a mother blessing of a mutual friend, and while Kate and I rode in the car together, we both prattled on at rapid speed, as if everything we’ve wanted to say to each other had been building pressure.  

 

Foremost in both our minds seemed to be the upcoming registration for pre-school.  3-day or 5-day?  What are you going to do with YOUR son?  Kate said that she had registered her son for 5-day, but I have not made my decision yet.  The 3-day makes the most sense for my family.

In my life before children I once noticed a car in the grocery store parking lot with the door wide open, nobody inside.  I saw an elderly man wandering the parking lot looking lost, and I asked him if he needed help.  He told me he was trying to find Arlis and I led him back to the car and helped him sit.  He was confused enough that he couldn’t figure out he had to pull his feet in before we could shut the door.  I told him she would be back soon and there was no need to worry.  It would be okay.  I left him and sat in my own car and watched through the pouring rain on my windshield until Arlis came out and crawled in the driver’s side, and then I drove away with tears in my eyes.  When I turned the experience in to a short story, my writing teacher asked why this narrator was longing for deep connections, what about her life was so isolating that she reached out to this lost, old man, why this connection made her cry.

Parked in Kate’s driveway after the mother blessing yesterday, she told me that even if our children are not in the same class next year we will still be friends, that she values the connection we’ve made.  It was as if she had read my mind.  We hugged and she got out of the car, and as I drove away I felt tears in my eyes.  Perhaps my indecisiveness was fear that if our boys were not in the same class, Kate and I would no longer be friends, that I would lose this connection that feels important to me.  But thanks to Kate’s kind words from the passenger seat of my car, I can stop worrying and know that everything will be okay.

This story originally appeared here.

Fun on the Kitchen Floor

I get down on my hands and knees to scrub the kitchen floors so infrequently that it's a novelty to the kids.  To them it's a fun new game called "Clean the Floor."  This might be the first time Eva has ever played it, and it's been so long since Sam played it that he doesn't remember it.

Call Me Nutty

The summer that Sam was 2 and 1/2 I pulled up to the daycare and the kids were all outside playing.  Sam's eyes were swollen and red, his face puffed up as if he were full of air, and a steady stream of snot ran down his upper lip.  This was four hours after he had screamed at Jamie that he'd gotten some peanut butter on his hand and Jamie said "Oh, just lick it off."   Standing on the sidewalk in front of Jamie's listening to the story my first thought was "Oh no.  Not THAT allergy."

Admittedly before my son was diagnosed with a peanut allergy I didn't know anything about them other than the fact that peanut allergies can kill.  I didn't know that nearly 6 million (or 8%) of American children have food allergies.  I didn't know that the prevalence of peanut allergies among children had tripled between 1997 and 2008.  I didn't know that 1 in 13 children under age 3 were affected by food allergies.

After Sam's initial scratch test in which a tiny peanut protein caused a welt the size of a half dollar on his back, I knew our lives would change, that we'd have to watch everything he ate, that he wouldn't be able to eat baked goods from commercial bakeries or any food from Chinese restaurants, that we'd have to ask about anything he ate that we didn't make ourselves because peanut butter is often used to thicken sauces and peanut oil is occasionally used in restaurant cooking.  I knew he'd never run around and play with a child who had just eaten a peanut butter sandwich.  And I knew he'd have to always carry an epi-pen in case of a severe, rapid-onset reaction called anaphylaxis which results in sudden throat swelling and low blood pressure that can be fatal.

I am a mother of small children so I understand how overwhelmed every parent is just remembering the needs of their own children.  I sometimes can't remember my own phone number or where I parked my car, so I completely understand a parent who barely knows my child who doesn't remember that he has a peanut allergy.  I understand that it is MY responsibility to over and over again gently remind those who are around Sam that he can't have peanuts.

But Valentine's Day caught me completely off guard.  The school knows he has a peanut allergy.  The school knows another child in his class has a tree nut allergy.  The school knows food can be a tricky thing for a child with a peanut allergy.  When I received a letter from Sam's teacher giving me a list of children who he would share "Valentines" with, I bought a package of little cards with little heart stickers and temporary tattoos, and Sam and I sat down and wrote his name and the names of his classmates on 21 of them.  The letter didn't mention food.  The letter didn't say anything about candy.  But I have learned my lesson and I now know that "Valentines" means something very different than it did when I was in preschool 40 years ago.  "Valentines" means little card and bag of candy... and an opportunity for the exhausted overwhelmed parents of Sammy's classmates to forget that a child in their class can die if he consumes peanuts.




According to a study released in 2008 by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, food allergies result in about 300,000 ambulatory-care visits per year in children.  More than 15% of school aged children with food allergies have had a reaction at school.  And approximately 20-25% of epinephrine administrations in schools involve children whose allergy was unknown at the time of their reaction.  Every year we hear about children who have died in school as a result of something they ate.  And if your child doesn't have a peanut allergy you may not pay any attention.  But when you're the parent of a child with a peanut allergy, news of the preventable death of a child with an allergy triggers fear and anxiety.  It is a good reminder that your child CAN die from a peanut reaction.  It is a good reminder that living with a peanut allergy will require you to step out of your comfort zone and keep reminding people over and over again that you are just one person and you would appreciate their help in keeping your child safe.
 
Here is a great list of 10 things you should remember about food allergies in the classroom.

Valentine's Day was a great lesson for all of us.  I now realize the importance of working with the school to get the word out about my son's allergy, and I now know that I need to be the one responsible for gently, consistently reminding other parents that there is a child in their child's class who can die from peanuts.  I don't blame anyone for forgetting, and I don't blame the school for failing to remind them.  I blame myself for not being more informed about what he encounters at his school and what his school policies are regarding allergies.  But you can bet that has changed.

Extricating Ourselves

After my last post I kind of feel like the marathon runner who got to the finish line only to discover she had to run another five miles.  Don't get me wrong, we are slowly working our way out of what will from now on be referred to as "The Crud," but it's been slower and crudier than I expected.  Sunday was Day 7 for Sam and although his cough held on, he was feverless and full of energy (my biggest challenge) and able to focus long enough to make his Valentine's cards for pre-school.  Sunday was only Day 4 for Eva and she still has a low grade fever, but she's no longer a lethargic, goopy mess.  I, however, am.  Hilary was right when she said it takes a village, because without our village Sam would not have eaten these last few days, and I might have perhaps lost my mind.  But thanks to Wonder Woman and other neighbors and friends, the fluids and honey are doing their magic and we're extricating ourselves from the crud one day at a time.

 

What A Fever Looks Like

Sunday:  We started the week with a Superbowl party in which the adults really didn't care about the game and the kids watched animated films in the movie room in the basement.  When Sam was asleep before we got to the end of the Holthaus's driveway, I should have known something was coming.

Tuesday:  While having dinner with friends Sam sat on my lap (rather than running all over the house in his usual manner) and told me he wanted to go home.  He actually stood by the door and waited for me.

Wednesday: I found Sam curled up in a sweaty ball under a blanket on the couch while I was cooking dinner.  Temperature 103.

Thursday: I worked from home while a 4-year-old bounced off the walls and a 15-month-old rubbed nose goop all over my pantlegs.  Thanks to Sarah for delivering apple juice, mangoes, and the all-important Edy's Fruit Bars to get us through the day.

Friday:  Eva's fever arrived and during the short moments when I put her down during the day she immediately cried, "Uppie!"  Another neighbor brought fruit and avocados and more apple juice, and when she told me I didn't sound good either, I told her that it was like mile 23 of a marathon and I would think about how I felt after I crossed the finish line.

Working from home required pre-schooler blackmail:

"If you stay in the bedroom and keep Eva happy for half an hour while I make some very important phone calls, I will give you a dollar and you will have enough for Nickjr Boost."

"But I want the new game for my Leapster.  How much is that?  I want that."

"You need 25 dollars for that.  I will give you 5 dollars."

"What can I buy with 5 dollars?"

"You have 5 dollars already and with 5 more you will have enough for NickJr Boost."

"Okay."

(Can I put this $5 on my expense account?)

The kids are now on the mend... which means we've crossed the finish line.  Unless you consider the end of a four-day weekend of 24/7 single-parent childcare to be the finish line.  In that case, I still can't think about how my throat feels.

Rejected Hand-Me-Downs

Recently on Facebook, one of those viral status updates about brothers was making the rounds, one of those posts you're supposed to read and feel all warm and happy about and then cut and paste in to your own status if YOU have a brother who will always be there for you.  I never had a brother so I wouldn't know what that's like, but I do have a sister.  An amazing sister who put up with being tortured by her older sister and frequently had to wear my hand-me-downs or play with toys that were originally bought for someone else.

Last year when I had photos taken of the kids and I was trying to figure out what shots to blow up in to wrapped canvases for a collage on my living room wall, I sent a few ideas to a friend.  She looked at my proposed layout and said it looked great but it seemed "a little Sam heavy."  She admitted this came from her middle-child perspective.  I told her I understood, that there was a lot of Sam compared to how much Eva there was, but Eva was just six months old.  Sam was 3 and 1/2.  I had a lot more Sam under my belt, a lot more Sam material available.

I come to this parenting thing as a first born.  I never had to put up with an older sibling demanding that I do what they say or I will tell Mom and Dad.  I never had to wear someone else's hand-me-downs or play games with torn cardboard and missing pieces.  I never had a bigger, stronger sibling sitting on top of me holding me down and threatening to spit in my face. (Sorry, Annie)  But I also was the one who got in the most trouble for everything.  I was the one caught by the all-encompassing “You’re older and you should know better.”  Yes, I got a lot more attention from Mom and Dad, demanded a lot more attention from Mom and Dad.  But I also got a lot more of the blame and a lot more of the responsibility.

Eva sits on her hand-me-down couch with her hand-me-down Tad

Eva’s first word was not ball or doll or puppy.  It was “stop.”  As in “Sam, stop that!”  Sam is older and during that first year (and still sometimes now) whenever I was exhausted or overwhelmed and just needed something to change for just one second, it was Sam I would demand things from.  Stop.  Now.  Stop whining.  Stop running.  Stop kicking your chair.  Stop hanging on me.  Stop bouncing off the walls.  Stop.

This weekend I went to all the usual places to find something clean for Eva to wear so I could put off laundry just one more day.  I glanced over the piles of too-small pants stacked in her bedroom closet, piles I haven’t had time to move to storage or donate.  I dug through the drawers of the changing table.  I pulled out the Rubbermaid bin of still-too-big clothes handed down from my cousin.  And when I came up empty handed I remembered the cardboard box of Sammy’s clothes that had come back from a neighbor after she’d sorted through it and decided not to take all of it.  Not just Sammy hand-me-downs, but Sammy’s rejected hand-me-downs.  I dug out a pair of 2T jammies with little green and orange dinosaurs.  They smelled like a musty version of Johnson’s Baby Shampoo mixed with Dreft.  I chased down my naked toddler who is happiest when her big belly is sticking out and she’s running to get away from Mommy, and she sat perfectly still while I pulled on her big brother’s hand me downs.

I will never know what it’s like to be a younger sibling, never know that feeling of wanting to be just like that older sibling, of waiting patiently for an older sibling or an overwhelmed parent to notice me.  But when I watch my children together and the way they interact, Sammy always trying to get Eva to bend to his will and play what he wants to play, Eva always trying to get in the middle of whatever Sammy is doing (even if it involves small pieces or red markers or sharp objects), I get a small glimpse into my own childhood.  I feel so incredibly blessed that I have a little sister that has always been there for me, and when Eva sat up straight in her new jammies and ran her hands over the dinosaurs on her legs and grinned, I wanted to call my sister and tell her how grateful I am… even if I don’t cut and paste any viral facebook post that says so.