The Worst and the Best . . .

Parenting is usually a lot of days that look the same, strewn together for long periods filled with the every day growing, shaping and playing that kids seem to inch through minute by minute, peppered with momentous achievements and incidents. Changes are so subtle and then I am shocked to realize suddenly that one of my boys is 'bigger' or 'older' or 'smarter'. There are good days and bad. Most of them are good. And most of the bad, aren't really that bad.

A bad day usually goes bad because there were more than the normal number of temper tantrums, someone skinned a knee, the boys are all fighting over one toy every hour on the hour, getting a 10 year old to do homework on the first warm day of the year proved to be an epic battle of wills, or I spent an inordinate amount of time arguing with a preschooler about what is or is not a HEALTHY snack. Over all, most of the bad are not that bad. Most of the bad days could upon further evaluation be moved over to the good column, just further down on the list.

Some of the bad days, luckily very few in my blessed experience, are really bad. Some are awful. Some of those bad days leave you feeling sick and exhausted and depleted. Some of those days leave you wondering who you think you are and what you think you are doing. Some of those days . . .

I've had my share. I've had quite a few ER visits and scares. I've also had my share of days that I completely lost it in front of my kids and hoped that they would not remember their mother ranting like a crazed lunatic. I cussed like a banshee at Tyler's dad once when he was taking Tyler away from me for a visit for the first time. I slammed the car door on my then 11 month old before they drove off. It was a misunderstanding about the schedule and I was scared and angry. I yelled and swore like a sailor. I was so embarrassed about my behavior to Brian and in front of his parents, but worse - my son. Then I was devastated that this was how I had sent him off with his family. He knew them well, but it was the first time they had their visitation away from me and I wasn't prepared for it on that particular day. It was terrible and I was humbled. I never once sent Tyler off in anger or resentment or anything less than benign happiness again.

Tyler once and Riley thrice have woken me up with croup like coughs and breathing that scares the bejeezus out of a mother in the middle of the night. Riley's in particular seems to come from nowhere, have no cause and be severe enough that he has trouble catching his breath enough to try to cough. It's not asthma, and it is really terrifying. We have now been prescribed a nebulizer so that I can be prepared for the next time.

When Scooter was just two weeks old, we had a family Easter at Cedar Creek and my infant son stopped breathing, choking on I knew not what. He recovered and breathed, but it happened more than once that day - landing us in the ER that night when the choking was followed by projectile vomiting. A few more weeks of occasional bouts like this led to the discovery of fairly severe reflux, but it was months before I listened to the radio in the car. I was always on alert for whether or not my son was breathing or choking. One of the incidents had happened while I drove alone and I pulled over on the side of the road trying to get him to clear his passage of the thick, clingy mucus, and I had somehow forgot the sucky-thing at home that day. Luckily Walgreens was on the next corner and I raced there with Scooter in my lap. I had the new tool open and used it well before I breathed again and then paid for my purchase.

At 18 months, Riley fell head first out of Scott's truck bed. It was parked in our driveway and the kids were climbing all over - playing. Scott was following Riley around the truck, but he wasn't fast enough and toddlers are top heavy. He leaned over and fell out, flat on his back in the grass (thank you!!!!). Scott brought him inside and while we sat there our very pale, but thankfully conscious and moving, child started puking. Off I ran to the hospital again. Luckily it was just a concussion.

Last summer, Riley gave me two big scares. The first was at the family lake house which has a loft over the living room with a very narrow and steep spiral stairway. We have blocked this monstrosity with a chair for our toddlers for years, but since Cori & Scooter were able to navigate the steps fairly easily we were forced to let Riley play some too. Scott was the first to cave and then he came outside and told me. Since there was no way I was letting them play on these steps unsupervised I went inside and sat in the living room with Aunt Bonnie to chat. She was actually in a chair next to the staircase, I was across the room on the couch. It was a miracle, really, that I looked up when I did. Riley was teetering on the edge of the top stair with one hand around the widely spaced rungs. I had opened my mouth and was standing up to tell him to be careful, etc. And he fell - from 12 feet up. I don't remember anymore if it was head first or how he tumbled. I do know that when I caught him he was back down with his head first at a very scary angle. I still don't know how I got there in time - it was like slow motion, jumping across those 6 feet while he sailed downwards. Bonnie was reaching out as well, but she only got one hand under him while I somehow got my arms cradled and caught him just as his head was grazing the carpet. It could have been the worst day of my life, ever. Scott didn't really believe me at first until Bonnie and his brother, who saw from the kitchen, confirmed that he really had fallen and I had caught our baby by some gracious miracle. When I blithely make jokes about not taking a cruise any time soon because I worry Riley would go over the rails, I am really NOT joking. I am dead serious.

The second scare involved a piece of toy/model car that Riley swallowed and got stuck going down. He was gagging and puking and occasionally turning purple. Then he was fine. I took him to the er to be safe, but then on the way there he started having problems again. I found myself stopped on a busy road trying to help him, just blocks from the hospital. He recovered again and we made it to the hospital. By the time we left we were fairly certain that the piece had un-stuck and moved downward. It has never 'appeared' that I can tell, and I occasionally worry about what that inch long oval plastic body is doing to his body for the long term. Like I needed something else to worry about.

I've also had quite a few bad parenting days that involved finding out truths and facts about my kids that I would rather not know, but I'll save that discourse for another day. Most of these incidents though, are surprises. Out of the blue instances that in most cases you don't see coming. They suck and they are often harrowing and scary, maybe because of their emergent nature. And then when they are all over and done with and all is well, it's hard to tell if those days should fall in the bad or the good column after all.

So the very fact that yesterday was planned and was something I did intentionally to my child is what made it the single most horrific and awful parenting day of my career to date. It was the absolute WORST day ever.

It was Scooter's dentist appointment to fix his cavities. I sent Riley home with my dad the afternoon beforehand and Scooter had been moaning about his absence ever since. Tyler played with him which helped but Scooter really wanted Riley to go with him to the dentist. We arrived at 8:30 and it took 3 of us to get Scooter to swallow his dose of valium, but once he had we camped out in the waiting room and waited for sleep that never came. He was loopy and compliant and kind of silly. His head bobbed and it was obvious that if he stopped moving he would pass out, but I couldn't get him to stop playing or moving around.

So at 10 a.m. we went back to the procedure room and he wasn't asleep. He was awake and therefore not happy about the nitrous mask. Being a pediatric dentist, they had flavored 'piggy noses', but the smells were just too strong for Scooter on his face. We tried a non scented mask, but even though he struggled slightly less, Scooter could smell or taste a trace of the gas and refused to breathe it in. If they put it over his nose, he breathed through his mouth and vice versa. The assistants figured if he could just get a couple of good breaths he would calm enough to make him compliant again. It was obvious as I was called over to hold him and secure his arms that his valium buzz was long gone.

After a good 10 minutes of Scooter crying and struggling and none of us succeeding, I was ready to call it a day. But the staff wasn't. They wanted to use a 'huggie-board' to secure him so that they could get the work done. I agreed, and signed a release. I took Scooter to the bathroom while they got ready and when we came back there was a white stretcher board laying on the chair. Scooter knew something was different and asked what that was. His voice cracked with fear and I know now that I should have turned around and left at that moment.

It was the voice that kept me there. The hard inner voice that tells us when we must do what must be done. Scooter couldn't chew on one side of his mouth. The cavity had to be filled. They promised they would be fast. I laid him down and watched the staff strap his wrists into bands and then wrap him in white mesh to hold him still then secure his legs with another band. Huggie board is a nice friendly term to disguise what is essentially a straight jacket. They didn't try the nitrous again. They numbed and injected and drilled. They did their job while Scooter screamed. Screamed in fear and anger. Cried in frustration and with pleading.

At first I sat in the mom chair in the corner, tears streaming down my face. They asked me if I needed to step out, but there was no way in hell I was leaving my child. Because while I sat there I was having flash backs of a test I had to endure when I was five. It was my kidneys and my parents could not come in with me. They were forced to sit just outside the door of a radiology test room while I cried and screamed. I remember being pulled away from them. I remember that fear too well. I wasn't leaving. (Could be why I am still a home-body and like to do everything with my parents, but who knows?)

I pulled myself together and refused to cry anymore. I stood at the dental chair and stroked the only part of my son that was available to me - his bare feet. They worked quickly so I am not sure if Scooter was fully numb before they drilled. He told me later he could feel it, but I am sure he didn't have nerve pain. I had to keep reminding myself that he wasn't actually in pain from the procedure. But he was definitely hurting. Crying, screaming and gagging. He wouldn't breathe through his nose so he kept choking. At one point he was puking and I was ready to break us out of the joint. In between drilling and filling, when there were less tools jammed into his mouth, he took a big breath and wailed 'I want Riley!' and I almost lost it.

I just kept praying, over and over, 'God please protect his spirit!', because that was what I was worried about. Scooter, with his impeccable recall, will probably not ever forget this. I never forgot. I spent 20 years with a fear of needles that bordered on the irrational (even forcing me to ask for nitrous and drilling without a shot at my own dental appointments) thanks to that test when I was five. Although becoming a mother helped me get over the hump with my fears, I am still not a fan. I avoid needles like the plague and I can't watch when someone else gets pricked either.

We left and went straight to my mother to pick up Riley. Scooter dozed a little in between moaning 'I don't like it!' regarding his now numb mouth. My mom wanted to hug me but I couldn't let her because I would fall apart. And I didn't want to fall apart in front of Scooter. I came home and cried in the bathroom, a lot. Explaining what happened to Scott or anyone else has proven difficult so far because I generally want to sob through it and saying it out loud somehow makes it much, much worse.

Kids are resilient. After Scooter suffered through the 30 minutes it took when the numbing wore off and feeling returned, he was ready to play with his brother just like any other day. And I would like to think that he will forget and move on, but I think I know better. At bedtime he was irrational about a pj shirt Riley was wearing and he wanted back. It took me a long time to settle him down and get him to sleep and I know it was the stress of his day. The truth is, I may never get him back in a dental chair. I did tell the dentist we were never doing that again. If he ever has another cavity, we will be doing IV sedation for him, regardless of the cost. I'd rather him be annoyed with me about one shot than put him through this again.

I really think I made the wrong choice yesterday. I know the cavity needed to be fixed, but I should never have agreed to the huggie board. As time goes on, I know I will be able to talk about this and think about this more clearly, but right now I am just horrified. I am horrified about what we did to this child and what it might have done to him permanently. Maybe I'm wrong and he'll be fine. I know eventually I will be okay. But, I know my kid and this was NOT good.

In my devastation and depression, I escaped last night for a couple of hours to do coupon shopping at Walgreens and CVS. That cheered me a little. Finally getting my sister on the phone for a while helped quite a bit more. Scott passed out five minutes after I got home since he had stayed up half the night on Monday to watch the Mavericks and LA in the playoffs. I watched a little tv and poked around the kitchen. On the counter was my 'encouragement journal' from MOPS the day before. As a surprise craft, steering committee had gifted us with a list of adjectives obtained in secret from our husbands that they and our children would use to describe us. We cut out the words and decorated the front of the journal with them. The list had overwhelmed me on Monday, the way I was seen. The words were meant to encourage us on those days that we were feeling 'less'.

I was definitely feeling 'less' yesterday. I looked at those words again and smiled. And then I cried all over again, but it wasn't the same. I wasn't sobbing in grief this time, but in gratitude and relief. Some days are so awful, but I can still find a ray of sunshine at the end of them. Scott had consulted with the boys for my words so I like looking at the list and thinking about how they see me. And since Scooter seems to be okay for now, I am going to try and focus on these things this week. I'd like to share them with you:

MOM

CARING

STRONG

SWEET

UNSELFISH

LOVING

COOL

UNDERSTANDING

WONDERFUL

Isn't that amazing? Isn't that wonderful? Isn't that just the BEST???!!!!????

The worst and the best - at the end of the day was it a bad one or a good one? The jury is still out.

Love and God Bless!