I Wanna…Blog Some

My Boy came home taller.  He seemed so grown.  He told me he had a great time, but I wasn’t listening as much as I was holding on to him and reconnecting after the longest time he’s ever been away from me. 

I asked if many kids had seizures (it was a camp for kids with epilepsy, afterall).  He said a few did.  There was one girl who had to wear a helmet because she had the kind called Drop Seizures which can lead to injuries from…well…dropping.  She had the most (but there was no prize–I have expected this camp to have prizes for most, longest, creativity).  The way he talked about them was so "matter-of-fact" and he explained how the counselors reacted by just being near the person and maybe rubbing their back.  I wonder if that helped him feel better about the times he’s had them. 

Unfortunately with me as his mom he would come out of seizures with a panic stricken lunatic hovering or crying rather than some calm person just lightly rubbing his back like friends did for me back in the day when I’d be hunched over gravel puking up my guts on Mill Ave.  I am going to try to take a lesson from this and if (God, I hope it doesn’t really happen) My Boy has a seizure around me I’m going to just sit by him and rub his back and leave the panic stuff in the past.  He deserves to come out of seizures without the panic of others making them worse.  But I will always hold on to the hope that there will be no other one. 

My Boy is looking forward to going back next year.  And I am looking forward to it also.  Maybe next year I can convince my husband that we can take a trip during that time.  He will be ok.  We will be ok.  We could be ok in Nappa Valley.

It has been nearly a week since we dropped The Boy off at Camp Candlelight.  That’s the camp that the Arizona Epilepsy Foundation puts on for kids with epilepsy.  So, that means that first of all I have to admit that The Boy has epilepsy and then I have to drive him about 2 hours away to Heber, Arizona (Ok, I didn’t do the driving…I did the sleeping while The Husband did the driving).

The Boy was very excited about this week long "camping" experience.  I was only a little nervous.  Not about how he would do, but about the way my mind would be cruel during the week of his absence.  I have managed to stay busy and have only had a few minutes.  Mostly to feel guilty that it can be very relaxing not to have to worry about a child.  I could still worry long distance, but it’s a different kind of worry when you are the only adult at home all day that is supposed to be in charge.  I spend my days trying to give enough space and also not forget to check on him at least periodically.  I mean, what if he had a seizure and I didn’t hear it and he fell and I didn’t go check on him and I don’t know what would be next.  It would probably be okay unless he played that "I don’t think I’ll breath" trick that he used to do.  He has only had two seizures in 2 1/2 years, but still I worry and still I feel guilty because I’m relieved to not be the adult in charge for a full week. 

Then there’s that other place I was afraid my mind would take me.  The place where I thought about how this is what life might be like all the time if the worst had happened when he was sick–the life of only having two kids.  I was afraid that I would be reminded of all the times I thought about how I would survive if I lost a child.  How I thought (non-stop at times) of how to keep my son’s memory alive to his sisters–one who was only 3 when her big brother was sick. 

But that’s silly, right?  My son did live.  And he rarely has seizures.  And the last two weren’t so severe that he stopped breathing.  And he comes home tomorrow!  I’m hoping to hear all about the activities, but more importantly what he felt meeting other kids with epilepsy (this was his first time meeting other kids with the same diagnosis).  I won’t be making the drive (even as a passenger) to pick him up.  I will see him at 6pm when he will be coming to see me graduate from a class I have been taking.  It will be a bigger graduation in my mind having given my son his first week of freedom from my crazy thoughts and overprotective nature.  (I will not be telling him of my crazy thoughts, so that’s just like they never happened, right?)

I can’t say no.  I think it will be good for the kids.  I want to be helpful.  I know others would do the same for me (and they have). 

Those are some of the reasons that might ramble around my mind if I wonder how I ended up with extra kids a few days a week during the month of June.  But do you think the parents of the kids that I’m watching know just how much I don’t pay attention to the kids I am responsible for?  I try to do my best to just stay out of their way and hope for the best.  My philosophy is kind of "I won’t bother you and you don’t bother me." 

Should I have told this to the parents of these extra kids so they could make an informed choice? 

I really want my kids to have fun and I don’t think that means having me plan every minute of their day for them.  I want them to invent their own games.  I want them to make up their own rules.  I want them to solve problems they might get themselves into.  I was about 11 when I had to figure out that I should probably eat something to get the cigarette smoke off my breath before going home to tell my mom that I had a broken arm.  I just want my kids to have some of those kind of problem solving skills. 

Would I be happy to know that my kids’ friend’s parents are just as relaxed (or lazy depending on your perspective) when my precious babies are visiting others?  I hope so.  I know the only feeling I remember having is one of complete failure when my kids come home from other people’s houses with a batch of homemade cookies that the mom helped them make.  But that’s ridiculous because I have helped some kids bake cookies.  And one time I let The Boy and another boy in his class create something called Dangerous Pie in my kitchen with very little guidance.  The boys destroyed my kitchen that day.  I guess what I hope is that some of my kid’s friend’s parents are willing to let my kids help destroy their kitchen a little.  And that I remember that what those other parents don’t know what hurt them and what I don’t know won’t hurt me.  Right? 

I’m back.  It took less than an hour.  I can’t feel the right side of my mouth or most of my tongue.  I think I might be drooling on myself.  Or maybe that’s blood from biting my tongue that I can’t feel.  I was such a weenie.  I had to stop myself from making them stop and running out about 3 times (once while I was still in the waiting room). 

I shoulda taken my friend the former birth doula and tooth pulling doula up on her offer to go with me as my dental doula.  I went with her when she got her tattoo and she did offer.  But I was thinking I might be brave and that the rooms at this office are really really small.  Not enough room for dental doula, dentist, dental assistant, me, and all of my anxiety in one little dental office.  Plus there were all the devices of torture to make room for. 

Aside from the horrors of having all kinds of crap in my mouth and the amount of time he felt like it was taking the overall experience had it’s good parts.  The dental office is all women.  And it kind of has a comfy vibe.  The dental assistant offered to hold my hand during the Novocaine shot.  And I accepted.  I squeezed a few times, but tried not to hurt her so that she wouldn’t be afraid to offer her hand to another whiny person in the future. 

I’m going to go with my youngest child now to go get her ears pierced.  We will both be getting ice cream when it’s done.  If I can feel my tongue by then. 

D as in Dentist.

D as in Don’t wanna go!

I have a dentist appointment in less than 1 hour.  I haven’t gotten in the shower yet.  I am dreading (oh, another D word!) this little appointment. 

This little reminder that I am not perfect.  I used to have a mouth that I bragged about (oh, get your mind out of the gutter!).  I had no cavities in my adult teeth and only 1 cavity in my entire life in a tooth that fell out decades ago. 

This little reminder that I’m getting older.  And things fall apart as we get older. 

This little reminder that I am afraid of so many things.  Needles.  Heights. Falling.  Flying.  Pulblic speaking.  Death.  Adult acne (which I also have today). 

This little reminder that I should be taking better care of myself.  I found out about this cavity last week at my first dental appointment in about 8 years. 

Crap.  Now it’s in less than 50 minutes.