8/10/09
Today started as the day from hell. First of all, when I woke I knew that
my cough and lungs were no better.
I wheezed my way out of bed, listening to Liam’s random babbling –
something I hate hearing when I first get up. Mom, mommy, mom, look . . . ugh. I need peace for the first hour I’m awake, but even I
couldn’t give myself the peace and quiet I so craved with all the coughing
going on. I fixed Liam his
breakfast and made my morning luxury – hot cocoa. Then Connor got up.
Thankfully, he was in the same jammies he went to bed in, meaning he did
not pee the bed today. Whew. One small favor granted. Thanks, God. I went upstairs to gather the laundry and noticed a board on
the floor in the boys’ room. Upon
inspection, I realized it was a piece of the bunk bed frame from under the top
mattress. As I turned to ask
Connor why he broke it (as usual, it was undeniably his fault), I saw marker
and crayon marks all over their bedroom wall. If there was any doubt in my mind whose fault that was, it
vanished when I noticed that the word “Connor” was decorating the paint in red,
brown and orange. Yay. More work for me to do on top of the
everyday messes! I was unsure how
to feel about it though. Part of
me wanted to scream about the writing on the walls, and the other part of me
wanted to congratulate him on writing his whole name without help. After I got
over that little catastrophe (with the warm fuzzy mommy feeling taking over),
it was almost time for lunch. Liam
and I made mini English muffin pizzas (on Thomas’ English muffins – way to plug
the brand, right? – WAIT! Upon re-editing of
this post a year later, my hubby has changed companies and no longer works for
Thomas’. Please buy Wonder Brands
instead!) and we all sat down to eat. Liam noticed Connor’s tongue was purple and Connor rushed to
the bathroom to see his handiwork (he later admitted that he snuck the tube of
purple-colored cookie frosting and ate in my bedroom). I heard a bang and thump and though
that he had jumped off the sink and was just about to yell when he came running
toward me, screaming. His tongue
was hanging out and was no longer the Wonderful World of Disney purple. Instead, it was red. Blood red. I brought him to the bathroom where I set him on the counter
so I could cleanout and assess his mouth, when I realized my mistake as he
squealed when he saw himself in the mirror. “I’m gonna die!
I’m gonna die!” he shrieked.
As I started squirting the water from the water bottle into his mouth to
rinse out the blood, he started swallowing and yelling some more. “I’m choking to def on my own
bwood! I’m dying!”
“Connor,” I began, “you are not going to die. It’s just a little bite in your
tongue.”
“I bit my tongue off!” he screamed, completely
hysterical. Now, there have been
times that seemingly small things build up in my psyche and turn me into a
raging lunatic, but this time, all I could do was laugh with a tiny tear in my
eye as sympathy reared it’s little head.
Finally he calmed down enough to take the Tylenol I offered and held the
ice-cold washcloth in his mouth. I
got him comfy on the couch and turned on a movie for him. Liam came running out of the office
with a picture of Curious George in his hand. “Here Connor,” he said, handing it to him gently and trying
to see inside his mouth. “This is
for you to cheer you up.” My heart
melted. Leave it to a near
disaster to make me appreciate the closeness they have.
About an hour later (alas, no nap though I was really hoping
the Tylenol would relax him enough to send off to blissful slumber), Connor
said he wanted to go outside. He
was playing out there for a while when I heard him yelling. Normally, Connor is not a crier so I
knew that something must be wrong.
Sure enough, he came into the house screaming with terror and holding
out his finger. “A bee stingded
me! A bee stingded me!” Oh, hell. My worst nightmare was coming true. Connor’s dad is deathly allergic to bee
stings and for the past five years, I’ve worried that Connor is also allergic
and I won’t know until he dies from his first sting. I grabbed his hand, searched for the stinger (none!) and
once again rushed him into the bathroom.
The cold water seemed to calm him down quickly and his eyes lit up when
I told him to chug the last of the Benadryl (Ahem, I am not a doctor. Do not try this at home). Kids. Fortunately for all of us, no anaphylactic shock seemed to
be flirting with us, so once again Connor made his walk of shame back to the
couch. I again propped the
cushions and wrapped him in the kitty blanky. I made a little icepack for his finger and adjusted the
TV. My sweet little boy. What a day for him. I stared at him from across the room
for a minute, thinking about how stressful his owies must be for him and
wishing I could take away the sting.
That’s when I noticed the blue scraps of fabric at my feet. “What the . . .” I bent down to pick
them up and found the scissors right behind me, also on the floor. “Connor?” His little face looked up at me, still tear-stained. “What are all these scraps from?” He pulled up his blanket to show me his
shorts. They were three inches
shorter on one side. He shrugged
his shoulders and said, “I wanted to be a man.” I was speechless.
I didn’t know what to do. I
just walked away and sat fuming in the kitchen until my hubby came home. When I regaled him with the tumultuous
day, he went out, hugged Connor and asked where his sting was. Connor held up his hand and said,
“Right here on my big fat winky.”
Jamie smiled at his use of vocabulary and asked to see his tongue. Connor stuck it out and then Jamie
asked him if he knew what karma was.
Of course, my little almost-five-year-old didn’t know, so Jamie
explained it to him as something that explains why bad things happen sometimes,
like if you cut your clothes and misuse scissors, then something bad might
happen to your hand. I think
Connor got it, though later that night he was right back to his normal,
misbehaving self, regardless of the threat of karma.
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