Archives for January 2006

Yesterday D. was in all manner of pain.

There was the clinching of the side. The wincing with the motion. The sighing with the sitting. He was uncomfortable at every turn.

When we were on the way home from church, he mentioned that his pain was getting worse, and of course Nurse Nancy here said, “Do you need to go to the doctor? Do you think it’s your appendix or something?”

“No,” he said. “I think it’ll be okay. But if it’s not better tomorrow, I’ll go see someone.”

And so the speculation began, because I am nothing if not medically cautious. I personally have diagnosed myself with several major diseases using only the internet and back issues of Ladies’ Home Journal.

One Christmas when D. and I were dating he even gave me a copy of the Merck Medical Encyclopedia. I couldn’t understand a THING because it had all the Latin phrases and extensive protocols for each condition, but boy did I have big fun trying to make sense of it all. HOURS of fun.

When it comes to fatal and chronic conditions, I am ON TOP OF THINGS. And my doctor LOVES to see me coming, as I’m sure you can imagine.

[Side note: one of the more embarrassing instances of this habit of mine was when we first moved here and I had a throbbing pain in my right hip that sort of radiated down my leg and around my side. When I met the doctor – for the FIRST TIME, I might add – he said, “What’s going on today?”

I said – and this is not an exaggeration for effect, this is the truth and nothing but the truth – “Doctor, I’m eat up with bladder cancer” (in my family, you can’t just have a little cancer…you must in fact be “eat up” with it).

He fell out laughing, so I immediately liked him. Then he examined me and diagnosed me with an inflamed sciatic nerve.

So I’m not what you would call ACCURATE with my armchair medical practice. But I get an “E” for Effort.]

Anyhoo. Back to D.’s mystery pain. We ran through the following line of questioning. If it wasn’t his appendix, was it

1) a heart attack? Did his arm tingle?
2) a cracked rib? Had he run into anything? (However, as a general rule, in this family, if someone is going to run into something or fall down something, 9 times out of 10 it will be me, graceful swan that I am.)
3) a pulled muscle? Had he lifted A. at some point? 38 lb. toddlers do take a toll on the muscles, after all.
4) some form of indigestion?
5) bursitis? I don’t know what bursitis is, but my mama mentioned it as a possible medical malady EVERY SINGLE TIME she had any sort of muscle discomfort.
6) arthritis? See explanation for #5, only include the words “flared up” – because for Mama, arthritis is always described as “flared up.”

We did this routine all day long. Finally, around 7 last night, D. looked at me with a pained expression on his face, and said, “I think I know what it is.”

“What? A pulled muscle?”

“No. It’s upper rib fat cancer.”

I nearly wet my pants. He beat me at my own game.

And y’all will be happy to know that the upper rib fat cancer *cough* pulled muscle *cough* is much better today.

Boo seems to be going through a phase where ignoring us / challenging us is the order of the day.

I sort of expected that this would happen…terrible two’s and all…but we’ve made it through the two’s (so far) pretty unscathed. The first part of two was hard, but for the last six or seven months, we’ve cruised, for the most part. Yes, we’ve had to discipline, and yes, we’ve been occasionally frustrated, but by and large we haven’t been completely stressed out from dealing with A.’s behavior.

There are two exceptions I can recall: 1) when Jeanie, who’s married to one of our pastors, spoke to A. one Sunday at church and reached out to hug him, and he slapped her across the face, and 2) when Alex threw a fit in the McDonald’s drive-thru because he wanted “inside, sit on chair, INSIIIIIIIIIDE” and the lady at the drive-thru window looked at me and said, “Oh. He’s one of THOSE kind of children.”

I just thought I was humbled by those two incidents.

And then there was this past weekend. Mercy.

I have to think that part of the willfulness is a result of his first day back at Mothers’ Day Out this past Friday. It’s like all the two year olds got in a huddle and said, “Hey, over the holidays, I figured out that THIS really ticks off my mama and daddy. You should try it. But if THAT doesn’t work, try THIS.”

Basically, we had a weekend filled with some variation of the following:
“NO,”
“NO, I don’t want to,”
“NO, I’m not gonna (fill in the blank),” and
“NO, MAMA / DADDY, NO NO NO NO NO NO [eyes rolling back in head while tears stream down face] NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.”

The key component in our conflict is the remote control. Yes, I said remote control. Yes, he’s TWO. But he’s OUR two year old, and his fascination with television and things that beep and click shouldn’t surprise anyone who knows us. That apple don’t fall far from the tree, I’m afraid.

The problem, though, is that he won’t WATCH anything. He just clicks. And a TiVo remote, as you may know, makes Many Beeping Noises when you pull up the menu, scroll through the menu, select a show, etc. Beeping noises that are very, very attractive to toddlers. Several times I’ve walked in the den to find the words “Would you like to delete this program?” on the screen, and Alex just on the verge of clicking “Delete now,” and the thought of losing that day’s unwatched “Starting Over” transforms me into some demented FBI agent trying to wrestle a gun from a criminal. I will dive, roll, tumble, leap – whatever I have to do to Take Back the Remote and restore order to our television viewing.

Seriously, though, this remote deal bothers me. It even scares me a little. It’s like D. said this morning: if we don’t get a handle on this issue, then Boo is headed for a bevy of control issues (not that toddlers don’t have enough of those without remotes entering into the fray). He’ll think he dictates what we watch in our house. That he gets to be in control of everyone else’s television. That he can always pick what and when and who he wants to see. And I think D. is right about that. In “Seinfeld” lingo, Boo would have “hand” – and an almost three year-old with hand is dangerous indeed.

Aside from the inevitable ADD – and I have LONG contended that ADD is partially a result, at least these days, of too many viewing options (hello, pot? meet kettle) – it’s just an obedience issue. If we say to leave the remote alone, then dadgummit, he should leave the remote alone. The end.

I can keep the remote deal in perspective when I think rationally and remember a) he’s two b) of course he would like something that beeps and clicks c) he’s not bullying the other two year olds and locking them in closets.

What scares me is the level of willfullness and the thought that it’s not going anywhere until he’s, say, 80.

It’s the prospect of all the many ways the willfulness will manifest itself, and the realization that D. and I, really, have such a short period of time to try to teach and train and conquer that willful little heart. I trust that God will enable us to do that, somehow…but the level of commitment and consistency that it will take just blows my mind.

So now all those comments people made right after A. was born start to make sense. People would say things like “it’s a whole new level of faith and fear,” and “oh, he’s going to keep you on your knees,” and I would think, “yeah, okay, I know – but do you see how CUTE this little angel is? Do you see those DIMPLES, people? Because those are some reallllly cute dimples.”

And here I sit – almost three years later – with knots in my shoulders from the stress of it all.

Feeling humbled now, Miss Mama Smartypants? :-)

Our child loves the outdoors.

I don’t say that in the way that some hippy granola parents would, like D. and I have somehow made a Conscious Effort to teach him to love Mother Earth and all that. If anything, we have tried to temper his love of nature, because, honestly, you can’t really watch TV out there and the computer doesn’t work so well, either. We are INSIDE people…people who enjoy air-conditioning and TiVo and mattresses.

I have never been camping, and for me, that’s sort of a badge of honor. Wait – I take that back. I did “camp” one night with my youth group on the beach at Gulf Shores, and I did not sleep a wink because of the Howling Sheets of Rain that came up under the tents and created little sand rivers that ran over your legs and arms and made you wish that Jesus would make his presence known very, very soon.

D. WANTS to be a person who camps, and he even bought us a tent when we were first married. However, I think I finally convinced him that any camping expedition offers the possibility of snakes, and, really, there’s no substitute for sleeping in a snake-free atmosphere.

But Boo – he is an outdoor boy. He loves whatever outside has to offer: rain, heat, sun, moon, clouds, flowers, grass – you name it. There are two nandina shrubs in our flower bed at the front of the house, and he walks up to them every single day and says, “Oh, Mama, they’re BEAUTIFUL!”

The latest objects of his affection, though, are a little – ummm – ODD.

The child loves manhole covers. So our trips outside usually involve walking down the driveway, checking the mail (he loves a mailbox, too), and then making our way to each and every manhole cover on the street. Honestly, I had no idea that there was such a need for street drainage here in Central Alabama, but what do I know?

Anyway, I watch A. jump on these manhole covers, and I wonder, what in the world will this child do for entertainment if we continue to live in this rural setting? Keep in mind that I am a person who has never used the words “entertainment” and “outdoors” in the same sentence; they’re oil and water as far as I’m concerned. But if he’s jumping on manhole covers at 2 1/2, will he be whittling by the time he’s 5? Will he start some form of jug band to fill up the lonely hours?

I can’t help but think that having D. for a daddy will convince A., at around age 7, that he has hit the parental jackpot, at least on the paternal side. His daddy has tons of DVD’s, he loves video games, he stays up-to-date on all the latest technology and, I might add, is smart as a whip about how to assemble it, use it, maximize it, fix it, etc.

I have visions of the two of them in the basement, sitting in front of the XBox with controllers in hand, saving the world from the threat of alien rulers, winning SuperBowls in Madden 2009. And I know that there is lots of real life football and baseball in their future, too – but I am waaaay on board with that, given my lifelong obsession with SEC football and basketball (in fact, when I picture myself 10 years down the road, I see me in the stands at some youth league football game, wearing a jersey with A.’s number on it, standing up and screaming, “BREAK HIS LEG, Alex! BREAK HIS LEG!”).

Oh, I’m just kidding. Kind of.

But what if A. doesn’t like that stuff? What if life out here in the boondocks rubs off on him? What if he’d rather sit on the front porch wearing overalls with no shirt underneath while he plays his BANJO?

I fear it’s a slippery slope from manhole covers to banjos. Gotta get this young’un inside. And fast. :-)

After one month (and then some), Tile Fest 2005-06 is finished. Kind of. There are still some caulking “issues,” but other than that, I am happy to announce that the linoleum is gone, the tiles are secure, and the craziness is, for the most part, over.

Since I was keeping a watchful eye on Chatty McTalkerson for the majority of the project, I didn’t get to share in much of D.’s “joy.” But I will say that I think the lowest of all the low moments was when he re-installed our commode, turned the water on, and then noticed a Very Slow. But Steady. Leak.

Oh, he said some words at that point that would not, as my mama would say, “further the Kingdom.”

He said even more words after he purchased a new commode from A Large Home Improvement Warehouse, brought it home, and it didn’t fit.

A couple of days later he called me from Another Large Improvement Warehouse, and when I answered the phone, he said, “Well, I got us a commode.”

“Okay,” I replied. “Is it the same kind we used to have?”

“Oh NOOOO,” he answered. “This one has comfort seating and can flush twenty golf balls.”

Puzzled pause from me, then:

“Do we have any NEED to flush twenty golf balls?”

“No. But I feel better knowing that I could if I wanted to.”

So, we now have tile, a commode you can sit on comfortably until the Rapture, and a place to dispose of all those annoying extra golf balls you have laying around the house.

Just a little piece of heaven on earth.

P.S. – 12:32 AM

Just a few minutes ago I let D. know that I had put the tale of his new toilet on the Wide World Interweb (as my friend Buddy calls it).

He said, “Well, what did you say about it?”

I told him that I mentioned how the new “toirlet” can flush 20 golf balls and has comfort seating and then more I talked the more he got this sort of pained look on his face, and I thought, “Oh no – I have crossed the internet boundary line on this one – this was just too personal a thing for me to post” (although why would it matter? It’s not like anyone actually READS this stuff).

Anyway, I said, “WHAT? WHAT IS IT? What’s wrong?”

“It’s 2 dozen.”

“HUH?”

“Two dozen! The commode can flush TWENTY FOUR golf balls at once. And have you sat on it? Because that commode [pointing at the half bath that has an “old” model] is like squatting. But this new one is like resting or something.”

Like I said – it’s just heaven on earth around these parts. :-)