Thursday, May 2, 2013

A Week Filled With Problem Solving-AKA Parenthood

Last week.  Where should I start with last week?  Let's start with the fact that my in-laws were coming on Wednesday to visit, and also to watch the girls for the weekend.  Andy and I had an out of town wedding we were attending.  Then let's add that at the beginning of the week Georgia had a double ear infection with a fever, Lana threw up all over herself in the car on the way to the farm, and Sonya...Well, Sonya broke her thumb playing baseball on Thursday night.  Did I mention we had to leave Friday morning?  Sometimes being a parent is so fun!

In retrospect Georgia's issues seem so long ago and not that big  of a deal.  She got sick two weekends ago.  On that Saturday night she woke up in the middle of the night screaming about ear pain.  Then she developed a fever that lasted for about five days.  I did take her to the pediatrician in the middle of it and he prescribed her a heavy duty antibiotic since she was going to be in the care of my in-laws in a few days.  We didn't want her still feeling bad by then.  It took a couple days, but she was eventually fine.  She did do that thing where I would give her Advil, the fever would completely go away for HOURS.  I would think it was over only to be woken in the middle of the night by a very fevery hot Georgia.  I had to give her a couple of midnight baths to bring the fever down before the medicine would work again.  That was mostly just to make her more comfortable so we could all sleep.  She was fine by the time the in-laws arrived though, thank goodness.

Was Lana sick?  You ask.  Not that I knew of.  But there she was throwing up all over herself on the 45 minute drive to the farm  last Tuesday morning.  

Georgia's mommy and me class was having a field trip to the farm for the morning to pick Strawberries.  I wasn't going to be back in time to pick Lana up from Kindergarten, so just decided to take her out of school for the day.  The farm is Sonya's most favorite place in the world and I knew that if I went without her, she wouldn't be happy.  Luckily she had just finished standardized testing the week before and one day off school wouldn't hurt her at all since she does so well.  So off we all went, but we were running a bit late to get there and meet everyone.

We were ten minutes from the farm when out of nowhere Sonya says,

"Lana is throwing up!!"

"WHAT?!!" I ask, trying not to whip around and veer us off the highway.

"Lana is throwing up right now!" She told me again.

I gave Sonya my backpack which had plastic bags (for all the good those did at that point) and wipees. After Lana stopped bringing back her breakfast from that morning, she tried her best to clean herself up.

"How are you feeling Lana?"  I asked, worried she was going to get sick again.

"Fine.  Better," she told me.

Why?  Why would she throw up?  She wasn't sick at all.  Unless...we had been in the car for 45 minutes and I knew she had been coloring and reading.

"Lana did you throw up on your books," I asked.

"No," she told me.  "I was coloring and then didn't feel good, so I put it away.  Then I got a weird feeling in my cheeks and threw up."

"Yeah, you got car sick baby," I told her.  "Next time tell me if you feel like that and we can get you something to throw up in, okay?"

"K," she said.

I was hoping that when we got to the farm I could salvage her pants with some wipees.  I mean they didn't need to be super clean since we would be getting dirty anyway.  Except then  I saw- or rather smelled them-  and knew that wasn't happening.  Even though we were getting dirty, it was throw up and throw up is such a putrid smell.  Now a good mom would have an extra outfit in her car for such occasions.  Good thing I was meeting many of those good moms at the farm.  No, I didn't have anything, but my friend Bertha did.  She had a pair of her sons shorts in her car.  They were a little big on her, but at least they were clean!  She was completely fine for the rest of the day.  It was strange because she has never been carsick before.  None of them have.  My sister Megan gets carsick and I remember when we were kids I thought she was just using it as an excuse to ride in the front all the time, but turns out she really does get sick.  She can't do anything in the car besides sleep and drive.  I really hope Lana isn't on that path.  At least next time I will have a plastic bag and a change of clothes in the car.  Or at least be on my way to meet moms who are more prepared than I am.

That brings us to Sonya.  Thursday night she had a baseball game.  I'm not thrilled with the league that she's on this year, because they have games in the middle of the week starting at 7:15pm.  Call me crazy, but I believe that's a bit late for 8 and 9  year olds. Especially because the games don't end until almost 9pm,  but nobody asked me.  What we've been doing to make it easier on the family is I take everyone to the game, Andy meets us there after work around 8pm and stays with Sonya.  Then I can take the Wonder Twins home to get to bed.  No sooner had I gotten them to bed on that night, when Andy, his parents and Sonya walk in the door from the game.  Sonya was holding her right thumb up and  I could tell something had happened so I asked.

"Well," Sonya told me, "I got hit in the thumb with the ball."

Oh, ok.  No biggie.  Kids have been getting hit more this season because it's kid pitch, but really how hard could a kid pitch.  Turns out hard enough to  break a thumb.  Well this we didn't know at first and whether it's truly broken is still up for debate, but we didn't know that on Thursday.  What I did know was that she couldn't bend it at the knuckle and it was swollen and turning pretty shades of purple.

We had her ice it for a bit, and I dug out an old finger splint we had from when Andy broke his finger years back.  We put it on, gave her some Advil and sent her to bed.  Because really, what are they going to do for a finger anyway, right?  My sister the nurse, who now works for hand specialist told me -wrong.  I did indeed need to have it looked at and x-rayed.  Yay!  Mother of the year again!  I was batting 1,000 this week.  But hey at least I wasn't getting it with the ball.  Anyway, it wasn't a huge rush, but it was definitely needed, since A-she is still growing and it could affect her growth and B-it's her thumb.  Arguably the most important of all the fingers.  Did I mention Andy and I had to leave at 9am on Friday morning?  Oh and this was not something we could just not go to, or even be late for since my husband was marrying the couple.  It's awesome how these things always happen at the  perfect time.

The good news was, my in-laws are totally smart capable adults who I knew could handle this situation.  I also knew Sonya was comfortable being with them. Still, I was having major mommy guilt about going.   I asked her a number of times if she was okay with me going and she all but kicked me out.  Most likely because she knew if I stayed, the daily visits to Menchies, while we were away, would not happen.  So with the help of modern technology, I was able to make all the phone calls I needed from the car to get Sonya appointments to where she needed to be that day.  I did send her to school, which turned out is a big no-no.  Apparently they don't allow kids with splints or casts in school, without a doctor's note.  Who knew?  They did allow us for that day, which was good otherwise Sonya may have revolted.  Her class was having an ice cream sundae party that afternoon.  Yes, my daughter's life revolves around desserts.  

My in-laws took her to get x-rays after school, but since it was Friday afternoon there wasn't much to  do from there.  They told us, if it was broken it was a very small fracture.  We would have to make an appointment with the hand specialist for Monday.  In the meantime we were to ice it and keep her on Advil for pain.  According to the in-laws she was running around acting like nothing happened by Friday night.  Could have been all the ice cream though.  Because you know, it does fix everything.  

So yeah, everyone had their own separate issue last week.  It does always seem to happen that way.  They all get sick around the same time, which makes sense, but these were three separate issues for each kid.  At least it wasn't anything we couldn't handle though.  

I did take Sonya to the specialist on Tuesday.  He was a great doctor and what I loved most was that he talked directly to Sonya to ask her about her injury.  I had to hold myself back from jumping in.  She is 8 now, and can speak for herself.  He also showed us the x-ray and told her about what we were looking at.  The good news was there was no visible fracture.  However, because she is still growing there is a growth plate with a space between the plate and the bone on the x-ray, so there is a possibility there was a small break there, but he can't tell.  The only treatment was what we had already been doing.  A splint, this time a new one that fit her a bit better, and no baseball or gymnastics and by default, piano, for a bit.  When she feels like it's better she can play again, but not until then.  It's already looking much better.  The swelling is done and the purple has faded.  My mom guilt about going away for the weekend, while leaving her with a broken finger faded too.  Although that might have faded after that first glass of wine at the rehearsal dinner on Friday night.  And I couldn't leave this post without a big shout out for thanks to Robert and Julia, my in-laws, for taking good care of my girls over the weekend, but especially for dealing with the Sonya situation.  Thank you so much!!  


No comments: