Three Signs and You're Out!

Today's post is brought to you by the number 3.

Three for the number of trips we have had to make to the hospital after allergic reactions.  Three for the number of times that something/someone sent me a warning of something wrong.

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The past few months have been a series of ups and downs.  Whose life isn't, right? And we all have those times when the lows seem to sink a bit lower, when you feel kicked when you're already down. 

It seemed like several times within the last 6 months that I couldn't get every member of our family to be healthy. Someone was always sick, and it wasn't always Monk.  His brother and sister had their fair share of fevers, colds, and such. But it was days like the morning that followed our second hospital visit, the one were we didn't get treated (see full story here), that really brought me to my breaking point.

After a night of staying up watching my youngest to make sure that he didn't have a secondary reaction, I relished sitting alone in my office, only as a second to taking a long nap. So I gladly left Monk with his babysitter and dropped the kids at school, only to be called back to the school office within the hour to pick up Punkin, who had vomited in class.  Weeks, months of shortened days, of missed days, of work not getting finished. It's the life of a mother, but this mother was done.

I was spent and exhausted.  Feeling defeated, I took her home, relieved the sitter and fell to my knees. "If you have something to tell me, please just take out a billboard!" Some days wold just go easier if He would just spell things out.

I asked for a sign. In truth I wanted it 20 feet tall and hanging just off the interstate, and maybe that was all I was willing to see.

Numero Uno
That Wednesday morning began as they all do, with no billboard propped up at the foot of my bed to tell of me of auspicious things to come, so I woke up and went to get dressed. I pulled a shirt from my closet, the same shirt that I wore on the day that we had to take Monk to the hospital for the first time. That voice in the back of my head, the one so often downplayed, said not to wear it because of its previous affiliation. I hadn't worn the shirt since that day. But it was only a shirt, and it would be silly to wear something else, right?

Second Chances
Fast forward a few hours and the kids are at school, leaving Monk with me to do the grocery shopping. We only needed a few things, but one of them was milk.

Monk has been diagnosed with a milk allergy since he was around 8-9 months old. I had begun to suspect that the milk allergy was getting worse and not better so we contact tested him in April. Basically this means that the allergist put milk on her finger and touched him with it. Below is the picture of that days reactions. The two bottom-right reactions are milk extract and regular milk, just brushed on the skin, not pricked. The result: Monk is contact allergic to dairy. He can't be touched by it.

The allergist suggested that we buy the kids cups with lids for when they drink milk, reducing the amount of milk spillage during the ever-present accidents. But we could still have milk in the house and continue to drink it? As long as we are careful. (Did you catch that last sentence?)

Back to the point...

Checking off my list, we made it through the store and the register. As I scanned my groceries I had a sudden feeling of massive anxiety come over me.  You know the kind of anxiety that ties you up in knots and renders you helpless. The kind that makes you could swear that someone you love is in danger.  I quickly thought about calling my kids school to check on them and call the hubby's work. Scenarios of the school on lock down or fire in an office building ran through my head.

I jump to extreme conclusions quite often. The hubby has on several occasions said that I needed the "jump to conclusions mat" from Office Space (actually, they apparently sell them!). Given my propensity for panicking, I talked myself down from the cliff, bought my milk and left the store.

Strike Three
With Monk down for his afternoon nap, I decided I could treat myself to a snack. Option 1: frozen coffee (aka, milk with caffeine free white chocolate flavored instant coffee mixed in) or option 2: smoothie.  With 10+ lbs of baby still clinging to my thighs I stood before the fridge arguing the finer points of going the smoothie route (less calories, fulfilling my veggie/fruit servings for the day, non-diary). The voice returned, urging me toward the frozen pineapple and kale, but again, it lost out and was shoved back into the recesses of my cobwebbed mind.

I'm Out
My hour of peace and child-free time flies by quickly and when Monk wakes up I don't even think about my glass of half-drunken coffee/milk. Given my child's innate spidy-sense for finding food, it isn't longer than 5-10 minutes when he finds my cup and dumps it on his head in an attempt to drink some.

I have no idea if any actually goes into his mouth, but everywhere it hits him begins to get covered in hives and I notice blood running down from his ear, where his eczema spots have opened up. I call our allergist immediately and sit on the phone with her nurse, describing every 2-3 minutes the state of the hives, and when it become clear that they are spreading and will soon cover his whole body, she tells me to hang up, administer the Epi Pen and call 911. All of which I do.

Trip three to the ER.

Hindsight
Looking back as we sat in the ER for a few hours to ensure that the reaction had passed, I realized that I was given a sign three time, essentially, a billboard. There is a reason that they say that "hindsight is 20/20" and I can't spend my days looking back on should've, would've, could've, but I do know that I will be burning that shirt and listening to my gut a bit more closely from now on.

Finding a balance

 

We all need to find a balance in life. Whether it is the balance between our home and our work, ourselves and our family or in my case, my children.  There are three of them. There are two of us, my hubby and I. We are outnumbered.

When my hubby and I started talking about having a third child we laughed at the thought of there being more of them than there are of us. We discussed the problem of having one more child than we have hands, one more child than we even had bedrooms for, and yet....here we are, and we wouldn't have it any other way.

Is the jump from two to three that big?

Yes. Maybe not Evil Knievil jumps the grand canyon big, but big.

Just because there are more animals than keepers in our household doesn't make it a complete zoo.  But, add to the sheer number of small humans in my house, the fact that one of them has severe food allergies, and that throws a few more balls into the air to juggle.

The Squeaky Wheel
We have all heard the saying, "the squeaky wheel gets the oil." Meaning that if one of your children is screaming from the bathroom for toilet paper, one is hanging perilously from the top of the loft ladder and one is quietly painting themselves with nail polish, you hide in the bathroom until your husband gets home.  No really, you grab the kid from the ladder before you have to add a trip to the ER to your daily "to list" because a long wait on the pot or a little added sparkle to the floor won't undo your whole day.

So when your children outnumber you (or you and your husband) you play the squeaky wheel game.  Who needs me most? Who will live without me for the next 5 minutes?

For anyone with kids there are not too many times when their wheels don't need oiling. They need feeding, clothing, bathing, tutoring, disciplining, rescuing, answering, moderating, playing, loving, hugging, soothing, kissing, boosting, and most of the time that is before 8:00am.

When one of your children has additional needs as far as their health, they tend to get the most focus. That one kid whose wheel is constantly squeaking. Over the last year, that child has been my Monk. The hubs and I have had to learn so much about caring for a child with food allergies, eczema and asthma.  I will admit that there isn't many times of the day that some aspect of this doesn't weigh on my mind.

So where does that leave the other two?

Trust me that each of them offer up plenty of opportunities for oil, and lately their needs may have resulted from a lack of being the squeaky one. How do you balance? How do you ensure that each of them gets their fill of mommy time and knows that they are loved.  How do you choose which wheel to oil when one is breaking out into hives, one can't get the help needed for long running behavioral problems and the last is hardly ever squeaky but wants nothing more than to sit and cuddle with you for hours?

This is where I have found myself over the last weeks. And the answer is that you become the last on the list and dole out as much attention as you can spare in those short and few waking hours that we are given. You ignore the state of your house, maybe don't cook dinner for a few nights, and understand that everyone will live through a week (or two) of school with wrinkled uniforms (or shirts with no buttons. Yep, that happened.)

Enough To Go Around
When you begin to consider having more than one child, there is a question that we all ask ourselves. Will I love this next child as much as my first? It is horrible to admit but we all wonder somewhere in the far recesses of our brains. We love or children so much that spreading it amongst multiple kids just seems virtually impossible. We make it happen though, and some magical force Grinchifies our hearts to grow with the addition of each new family member.

While it becomes second nature to share and spread the love, there is one thing in our lives that we all need more of but can't seem to get...time. And that is where things get complicated. Taking the time to give each child what they need can take more than 24 hours each day, and that is before you go to work, make dinner, wash the dishes, clean the clothes.  You get me.

There is not enough time to go around to focus on  just one child to the extent to which we all would like, but I can only hope that sharing a mommy, and learning to help themselves on occasion (like making sure there is toilet paper in the bathroom before you go potty!) will help them each to become a bit more resilient in life.

I try to find a balance, and I have a feeling that I will be working the scales back and forth for the rest of my life. I have three beautiful children who each need me in one way or another, and I am thankful for being needed, being wanted and being loved by them. Even if it is for 27 hours a day.

And know that it is an exercise in futility to get them all to smile at the same time.

Perspective

Written May 19, 2014

The dictionary defines perspective as "a way of regarding situations, facts, etc, and judging their relative importance." 

Right now, today, I hate perspective. Because to have perspective on life, it many times means that some else is suffering far more that you. 

"That really puts things into perspective." The "that"? Someone else gets laid off from their job, is diagnosed with a terminal illness...loses a child.  So in the face of this tragedy we are able, somehow, to be thankful for our own lives. Those small problems that plague us, pail in comparison.

Why can't we gain perspective without someone else "trumping" our own problems. Why can't we see the importance of saying "I'm sorry" or "I love you" without a heavy heart. We all want to remember to hug our children everyday, to not get so upset with them, to forgive others when trivial differences arise, to never go to bed angry at our spouses, for who knows what tomorrow holds. Without perspective, sometimes we forget. 

Perspective is the great equalizer. It helps us to remember that we are all the same, and with the blink of an eye we could be facing the same loss. So maybe perspective isn't totally terrible, as long as you are on the right side of it.  Maybe it gives a bit more meaning to the lives of those who are sick or no longer with us if we translate one's suffering into love and thanks for friends, family and those who are on the other end of our own perspective. 

Today I have perspective on what is important, or better, unimportant in my life. I wish I didn't have this perspective, because maybe that would mean that she wouldn't be suffering her loss right now, that her sadness didn't outweigh all of ours. 

A prayer to God that He keep my family safe and healthy, and to Mary to hold in her arms those mothers, especially my friend, suffering for their children.

So have perspective. Hug your children. Call your mother. And I will close the computer so that I can go have lunch with my husband, which I always seem "to busy" to do.