Waiting For Change

Tuesday, I started writing a post about parental responsibility.  It is going to be a great post when I finish it, but as usually happens with me, life interrupted and now I have a different story to tell first.

Tuesday my youngest goes to preschool, and after I picked him up we came home and I got him a snack of yogurt and pretzels while I went all ADD on the house while making my lunch -- started unloading the dishwasher because I needed a plate for my sandwich, then stopped halfway through to get the clothes out of the dryer and put the wet clothes in from the washer, went to throw away the lint from the dryer and grabbed some chips from the pantry, went upstairs to get some more laundry and remembered I was still hungry, went back to the kitchen to make my sandwich only to start unloading the dishwasher again -- you get the idea.  My youngest was sitting at the table eating his snack as I was running around all crazy, when all of a sudden he started coughing and gagging.  I knew that he was "okay" because he was coughing, crying, and breathing, but I still went into mom-panic-mode and scooped him up and slapped his back, and made him drink all in an attempt to wash down the pretzel stuck in his throat.  He was scared and he said that it was still in his throat, I assumed that the pretzel had scratched his throat and just kept making him drink. 

I finally got him calmed down, and my sandwich abandoned, I was cuddling with him on the couch.  I asked him if he was okay as I stroked his hair and kissed his forehead and he looked at me and said:

"Swallowing that penny was scary."
 

Well of course I FREAKED OUT because I thought that he had been choking on a pretzel.   I probably could have gotten it out when he first started choking and gagging, but silly me, I wrongfully assumed that he was choking on the food that I gave him to eat and not some random object he'd found on the table.  I thought that at 4, we were past the point of putting money in our mouths. 

So I called the doctor, who sent us for X-rays to confirm that it was a penny, that it wasn't lodged anywhere, and to determine best course of action based on that information.  The penny was there, and thanks in large part to my pushing fluids after it first happened, it was in his stomach.  We were told to go home and wait and watch for it to pass.  Call if there was any pain or vomiting, or if there was no sign of the penny by Friday.  In case you've never had the pleasure of dealing with a swallowed foreign object, that meant that I got to catch and go through poop until I found a penny.  My life is so glamorous.

Tuesday -- No poop.
Wednesday -- No poop.
Thursday -- Still no poop, so I called the doctor who asked if this was "normal" for him (and I honestly don't know.  I mean, I haven't closely monitored his poop since he's been out of diapers).  In any case, they instructed us to give a laxative and extended the timeline to Saturday.

Finally, this morning, we had a little poop, but no penny.  Conversations with my little piggy bank revealed that swallowing the penny had hurt so much that he was now deathly afraid to poop because he thought it would hurt again.  We had tried in vane to dispel this fear, but the 4 year old was having none of it, until he finally pooped today.  Now he believes us that it isn't going to hurt, but still no penny.

So the downstairs toilet remains wrapped in Saran Wrap to catch the elusive penny and unavailable to everyone but him, and my box of latex gloves is on the counter.  And I will spend my day trying to catch up on housework and asking the 4 year old every 30 minutes or so if he needs to poop so that I can play with it until I find the penny. 

Sigh. 

Just waiting for change.

It's Okay

As I sit here contemplating what I should write, and trying to come up with something sweet and sentimental to say in honor of Mother's Day, I have yelled at each of my 4 kids at least once, and I have made NO dinner plans. Hmmmm....

So, in honor of all mothers everywhere, I would like to tell you that it is okay. It is okay if you have just as many clothes in your CLEAN clothes hamper as you do in your DIRTY clothes hamper. It is okay if you have to pick up half eaten food off of your floor. It is okay if you don't get the beds made, the dishes done, or the bathroom cleaned. It is okay if you do not wear make-up everyday, or even SHOWER every day. It is okay if you never go and get a "mani-pedi" or a facial or wear the latest fashions. It is okay if you have not scanned all of your kids' artwork into the computer and made a digital scrapbook for them, or even filled out all of the pages in their baby books. It is okay that your kids' clothes do not come from a high-priced boutique or if they even match! It is absolutely fine if there are fingerprints on your mirrors, crayon on your walls from three-feet up to the floor, and and smears of God-knows-what on various hard surfaces in your home. YOU are normal. You are not Martha Stewart and you do not live in this month's edition of Better Homes & Gardens. If your kids are loved and happy, none of the other stuff matters.

We all know "that" mom -- the one who has it all together. Her house is clean, her kids are all dressed alike, she is perfectly coiffed, clipped, and painted and you stare at her in full-on green-eyed monster mode in your faded yoga pants, ponytail, and t-shirt with the bleach stain near the hem and the spit-up on the shoulder and wish you could get it all together like her. Her kids had homemade pancakes for breakfast and your kids had Pop-Tarts. Her kids take French, Ballet, violin, and voice lessons and your kids play soccer. She goes to yoga every other day and only drinks soy milk and your idea of a work-out is to clean out from under your kids' beds and you had 4 cups of coffee and a slice of cheese for breakfast. Her min-van is the pristine model from last year and yours is from the last millennium with precisely 76 stickers on the 2 back windows, and a slightly offensive odor when temperatures climb to over 100 degrees. Yes -- you are jealous of her perfection, but if you look closely.... there are chinks in her armor. Remember, you see what she WANTS you to see. No one is THAT perfect.

However, you do not need to know what her faults are. It. Does. Not. Matter. You were not feeling inadequate before you ran into her in the car-pool line, so why does she make you feel that way now? Remember that your kids are loved. They are happy. They do not want to take French, or violin. They did not ask you for pancakes this morning. They do not have to worry about wrinkling your clothes, smudging your make-up, or messing up your hair when they throw their arms around your neck and say "I love you, Mom." Ahhhhhhh, there it is. That is YOUR perfection. (And mine!)
So Happy Mother's Day. Ignore your laundry, dishes, and general housework and sit on the couch and cuddle with your kids. You are the perfect one for them.