20 April 2008

Faceplant

I think there are some moments, as a mom, that are completely unpreventable. These moments, although unpreventable, still cause one to feel like a crappy, negligent mom. Just now, for example. My kid is learning to walk. He took several steps on January 31, then didn't do it again. For 2 1/2 months. My husband and mom believed that he could walk, but that's about it. I even started to doubt it. We'd stand him up and he'd immediately buckle. He's been content to crawl, cruise, and teeter while tentatively holding my hands or the TV stand or the sofa. He'd happily take off running while pushing his toy basket or his push toy. But steps, standing and walking? Never again. I thought maybe my kid was regressing. Getting dumber. It seemed consistent with the trend. He did it with the lights and the trees. At first we'd say, "Baby, where's the light? Can you point to the light?" He'd get a huge smile of his face and point to the light, then we'd clap and cheer and he'd clap and look oh-so-proud. Same with trees. Now when we say, "Baby, can you point to the light? Show mama the light," he gets a big smile on his face and claps his hands with the bliss of an ABB supporter on January 20, 2009 (can't wait to see what StatCounter pulls up from that link). Daycare sent me subtle hints and some not so subtle hints. "Try shoes with harder soles," the suggested one day. I went out and got some shoes with harder soles. "Try shoes with harder soles and more ankle support," the prodded. "Shoes like Stride Rites." I went out that evening and shelled over $80 for two pairs of Stride Rites. A few days later: "Well, L-didn't walk for a long time. And B-wow! It took him FOREVER to learn to walk. He'll get there when he's ready." But I wanted him to be ready then. My baby's retarded, I lamented to coworkers and my husband. I really think he's getting stupider. They rolled their eyes and sighed, as most people do when they are around me and I speak. At the one year check up, the pediatrician asked all of the usual questions about my kid's development. Then he asked about my kid's head size. I went through the same speech I go through at every doctor's appointment, and the pediatrician started muttering, and I wasn't sure if he was talking to me or himself, "Well, I don't think we need to be ultrasounding heads just yet, but if he's not walking by his next checkup," and trailed off. My dad-the once a quarter that we see him-theorized a few weeks ago that the baby's not walking due to his head size. "His center of gravity's off, his body can't support that thing." I got angry, but bit my tongue.
So I fretted. Until this week. He's standing on his own. He's dancing on his own, and he's taking several steps on his own. We clap for him when he walks to one of us, pick him up and toss him in the air and give big hugs, but I don't think he's connected it with the walking just yet. He took steps in the living room and on the porch and in the back yard. I felt vindicated that my child would actually be able to hit this developmental milestone soon. And then, after having cleaned him up from his snack of bananas and bunny grahams and Kix, I set him on the other side of the gate and climbed over myself. He stood, looked at me, and took off for the couch. I glipmpsed the camera with my peripheral vision, feeling very smug about soon being able to post videos of my kid's steps. I was going to post them on YouTube. And my blog. And my Facebook page. And my kid's Facebook page. And then I'd email links to the videos and everyone I know would know that my kid can walk. So there.
My kid's steps got a little wobblier the closer he got to the couch. I stood two feet away from him, watching him, telling him he's almost there, and then, thud. A thud louder than my husband's Victorian novels hitting the ground. A thud, then silence, then a scream. He hit the couch with his upper lip. The hard wooden part of the couch, the part right below the cushions, connected with my sweet baby's head, and he was in pain. I ran over to pick him up. My husband came running from the bedroom where he was reading Jane Eyre. My baby cried and screamed and cried and when he threw his head back we saw blood coming out of both sides of his mouth. I don't like to see blood coming from anywhere on my baby. We did the best we could to see where the blood was coming from, and we discerned his top teeth. We couldn't tell if they were loose or misplaced because the baby kept screaming. My husband did the best he could to clean up the blood, and eventually it stopped. My kid was still worked up into a tizzy, so we gave him some Tylenol to help the pain, and once he stopped crying put him down for a nap.
There was nothing I could have done to prevent this. I don't think I could have gotten to him before he stumbled. I wasn't on Facebook or Yahoo or anything else. I was allowing him independence and the freedom to move around unattached to anything except himself. And I know accidents are part of parenting, especially part of parenting active boys. It's not my fault my kid got hurt. But he still got hurt, and it happened on my watch. And that is a pretty crappy feeling, and I suspect it's a feeling that most moms get.

16 April 2008

Maintenence

"So he'll get this once a day. You can either give it to him as part as your morning routine or at night," the pediatrician told me.
"Okay."
"For the next four or five days, just combine it with one of his other treatments. Once you finish that, you'll just do this one by itself."
"Okay," I nodded.
"Now, this is a steroid. But it's a very low does steroid."
"Okay." The doctor started to write a prescription.
"Wait," I interrupted. "I don't mean to be completely stupid, but I have a few questions. So is this like asthma? Does he have asthma?"
"Well, yeah, it's a lot like asthma. We're doing this in hopes that it won't develop into asthma. And most kids who get asthma grow out of it. Of course, I can't guarantee anything."
"Okay. So is his brain being damaged? If he's having to work so hard to breathe, is his brain getting enough oxygen?"
The pediatrician looked at me with more patience than I'd seen from him since my first visit there. "His brain is getting plenty of oxygen. Just because his breathing is laboured doesn't mean he's not getting enough air. Human lungs can function at about 1% of their full capacity. It just means that the lungs have to work a lot harder than normal, which makes other things harder. Look at him. We can hear that he's active, he's moving, but it's harder than it should be. We can tell by his breathing."
"And the steroids? Is his little face going to become all puffy?"
"No. He's not going to turn into Arnold Schwarzenegger or have baby roid rage or anything like that. He's not going to look like a weightlifter or body builder or anything." The doctor's patience was waning.
"So just to clarify," I said. "We're doing this indefintely?"
"Indefinitely," repeated the doctor. Then he paused. "Well, at least for the next two or three years. Definitely until July. I've written you a 30 day prescription with one refill. This is the maintenence medicine I said we'd hold off on at the last visit. It's necessary now."
"Okay, so that should take us until the end of June. We're scheduled for a checkup then."
"Great. After July, I might take him off of it, IF he's doing better, I'll take him off of it for the summer then start him back up in the fall, when the weather starts to turn. By doing this for the next few years we hope that his lungs will be able to work at full capacity later on."
I pictured my baby at 12, not able to play soccer because his lungs don't work properly, and I thought of the daily wrestling matches our family would have to endure: turn nebulizer on. Hold the baby's arms down. Hold his head still. Pat his head. Explain that this is for his own good. Try to watch whatever's on the Food Network or Bravo during the 20 minute ordeal. Remind him (and myself) that with each treatment, we are one day closer to being finished. Turn the nebulizer off and try to catch a squirming baby. Explain that we are not, in fact, finished and that he does not have a choice on this. Try to carry on conversation with other adult in the room, over the roar of the nebulizer motor. Give up, turn nebulizer off, comfort sobbing baby.
Every day. Indefinitely.
I think we are being punished for mocking this commercial so often.

11 April 2008

Tonight's Target Trip

My kid and I were in Target tonight-the one that employs the world's oldest crackwhore. We got in the express line and waited our turn. I had to carry Micah because he kept standing up in the cart and trying to climb out into my arms. The strap does not hold him. I tried very hard to manage my cart and squirming one-year old. Then he leaned over and spit up on the floor. The line had not moved. Being me, I was completely unprepared, carrying only my child, my keys, my wallet, and my phone. I didn't know what to do. I was embarrassed, and I thought the chances of trying to find someone with a mop were slim. Besides, I didn't want to lose my place in line. So I put my wallet and keys in the cart, kneeled down, and proceeded to try to wipe the brown milk and Cheerios baby vomit up with the knee of my jeans. It turns out that jeans aren't the most absorbent material. So I stretched the corner of my cotton t-shirt as far as it would go while precariously balancing my child. While I did all of this, two women, clearly well-off, and clearly well past the age where they would find themselves using the clothes they were wearing to wipe up their child's spit up off the floor of Target, cut in front of me. No "Excuse me," no "Are you in line?" Nothing. They just brazenly walked past my bright red cart, my tettering baby, and my vomit splattered self. I straightened up and adjusted my baby and the cart. The woman closest to me kept turning around and smiling at my kid. I spent the next five minutes thinking angry thoughts at the women for being so rude and so privileged and angry thoughts at myself for being too polite to stand up for myself and my child and our position in line. If they'd asked, "Are you in line?" I would have told them to go ahead. But they never even asked.
And if you were at Target tonight, around 6:40, I was the one on the floor wiping up spit up with my jeans.