27 Bandaids a Day

Oh, Tate. What are we going to do with you? No, seriously. What am I going to do about him? The first major incident was when Jake took splinters out of his finger a couple of years ago. Jake started yelling for me & said that Tate had passed out or something. I thought that Jake was exaggerating. Until I witnessed it for myself. While watching the twins get immunizations, Tate went all stiff, fell backwards, started shaking,  eyes rolled back in his head and he was whimpering but was not really awake. Scared everyone in the room, including the med. assistant who was giving the shots, to death. She said "is he having a seizure?" I scooped him up & took him out of the room. Joyce (our friend/pediatrician) came and looked him over, checked some vitals, for anemia and for low blood sugar. Everything was fine - except for his reaction. Since then he has done it a few more times. When he had to get immunizations a couple of months ago, he went pasty white, into a cold sweat and threw up. When he got a spliter while we were in Santa Barbara last week, he did the same thing.

Here's the problem: the splinters are still in his finger because we think that the trauma of taking them out will be worse than the splinters themselves. On the other hand, how long do we leave them in there? Every scratch, bruise & bump- real or imagined- results in very worried questioning "is there blood?" "is it going to be ok?" "will it get new skin?" & then needs to be covered with a bandaid because he says that he doesn't want to see it. I think that the reactions are getting more frequent and smaller issues are starting to upset him. Aside from buying a ton of band aids, I need to figure out a way to help him cope with the inevitable scrapes that come with being a kid. I worry that his worrying will start to limit his activities. One tiny scrape at the skate park & he has sworn off ever going there again.

You'd think that being a Mom for many years would make it easier. Instead, we just get new things to figure out & work around.

Real life isn't really all that bad.

Vacation is over & it's a bit of a bummer. Maybe I've whined a bit today. So, I'm kicking myself in my rear & reminding myself how lucky I am. Yes, I had to go to the grocery store. I have money for groceries. Yes, I had to drive around & find a couple of things that Chloe needed to go to EFY next week. I was able to purchase those things & she gets to go to EFY for a week. Yes, I had to do a TON of laundry. The laundry was done in awesome front load washer/dryer in a nice laundry room. And poor us, I have to figure out how to juggle all of the kid's fun activities which I keep track of on my iphone and drive to in my car w/leather interior, etc. The post-vacation blues can only happen because we got to take a vacation in the first place.