February 23, 2005

open your mouth and say yikes!

Henry has four cavities. Four! CAVITIES! One for every year of his little life! And, to celebrate his fifth birthday, we will be checking in to the HOSPITAL for the pediatric equivalent of a root canal! Holy shit!

And yet, somehow, this is not the result of my bad parenting, at least not directly–the nice pediatric dentist said that he usually sees “this type of decay” (oh my god I can’t believe we’re using the word DECAY to describe Henry’s little baby TEETH) is usually associated with a serious illness or large doses of antibiotics. Has he been ill? the doctor asked. No, I said, maybe a few ear infections, but nothing out of the ordinary. Has he ever been on extensive antibiotics? No, I said again, just for the ear infections. But he was premature! I announced. Ah, he said, that’s probably it. I, of course, forgot to ask why that would be it (because every time I take Henry to a specialist and the doctor finally identifies The Problem, I am so freaked out by the diagnosis that I forget to ask all the logical questions, despite the fact that, of course, we have gone to the specialist in the first place because we thought there was a Problem and we are hoping said specialist will diagnose it and answer all our questions. This drives Wade crazy).

And then, hours later, I remembered that when Henry was in the NICU, he had ten days of antibiotics to kill whatever infection he might (or might not) have contracted from me, in addition to all the antibiotics they pumped into me in the two days between when my water broke and when I finally delivered. And since they never knew what, precisely, was wrong with me, they just gave us both, I don’t know, Cipro or something, to kill whatever might ail us. It worked, and Henry didn’t die or go blind or any of the other things we worried about, but now he has to have four teeth drilled and capped. Four! TEETH! Shit.

Of course, they can’t actually DO this proceedure until JUNE, because that’s how far the dentist is booked up, so I have a good three months to fret about this. And I certainly don’t have enough things to worry about already; I mean, I’ve been sleeping a whole five or six hours at night, so clearly I need something new to jolt me awake in a cold sweat at three am. Shit.

And the dentist, who came highly recommended and has a nice bedside manner and does a dozen of these proceedures every week, is NOT on our PPO’s provider list . . . so when I’m not agonizing about the rest of Henry’s teeth rotting away before kindergarden, or what exactly the anesthesia will do to him, or how scarred he might be by this whole experience, I can worry about where in the hell we’re going to come up with, oh, say, A THOUSAND DOLLARS to pay for this.

Shit.

February 20, 2005

wishes DO come true

Last week I wished for a sick day–and here it is! Whoo hoo! I’m dizzy and lightheaded, and can’t really function if I have to sit or stand for long. Which is what I feel like most of the time, now that I think about it. But I’ve spent most of the day in bed, ignoring all things domestic, and it’s lovely. Sadly, though, I keep thinking that I would enjoy it all more if I didn’t feel so crappy.

Wade and his mother have taken the boys to SuperTarget to get (brace yourself)–a Spiderman mask and gloves for Henry, and god only knows what kind of testosterone toy for Charlie. We are on a big superhero kick around here, and being a Pink Princess Girly Girl, I’m a little baffled by the whole thing. I’ve been trying to make it work as a sort of wierd civics and health lesson (”Spider man helps people! He is polite! He eats his veggies! He votes Democrat!”), but Henry really just wants to know where the webs come from and how he can get him some. No wonder I feel tired and woozy.

Last week the boys asked for superhero capes, so I gave them an old pair of purple pillowcases, which we pinned to their shirts. They wore them all day and couldn’t wait to show Daddy. I took pictures–lots and lots of pictures–of the capes. I call them the Super Tinky-Winky capes. Wade hates this. Thus the trip to SuperTarget for REAL hero gear. I am doomed.

Time to lay on the couch and watch HGTV.

February 19, 2005

the dream

Last night I dreamt that Charlie and I were riding on a little open-air bus, like the kind they use at Disneyland to drive you from the parking lot to the front gate. I was wearing a long wool coat that I owned in college, and my LL Bean boots (also from college); my hands were full of papers. The bus stopped and I got off and started to wave goodbye to Charlie, who was standing next to his seat looking out at me. He was wearing his puffy winter coat and his little grey backpack, and he had a pile of picture books with him and Bonsai, his stuffed chimpanzee. I kept reaching one hand through the open windows to straighten up his books and hand Bonsai to him, but Charlie kept dropping him on the seat. Then I started blowing kisses and saying, Bonjour! Bonjour! He was blowing kisses back, but not in the happy way he does when I leave him at school–he had the little confused face he gets when I tell him we have to do anything out of the ordinary (go to the doctor, take medicine, skip a nap). Then I started saying, Je t’aime! je t’aime! but he just looked more perplexed and nervous. And I noticed that his nose was running and he had dropped Bonsai again. And the driver was waiting for me to move away from the bus so he could go on to the next stop.

And then I woke up.

February 17, 2005

funny playdate moment #1

Henry and his friend Hayden are eating lunch at our kids’ table. Hayden’s mommy and I are in the kitchen, getting our grown-up lunches. Suddenly, Henry and Hayden jump up from the table and run into our sitting room. When I follow them in, they are opening the armoir that houses our TV.

Me: What’s up, guys?

Henry: Hayden wanted to see our TV.

Hayden: (surveying our crummy, twelve-year-old, 19 inch television) It’s nice.

Henry: Thanks, Hayden!

They run back to the table and finish their lunch.

February 16, 2005

what five grand a year gets you

Me: What did you do at school today?

Henry: Hmmmm . . . . (thinks for most of drive home). I had snack table with Tyler.

Me: That’s nice. What did you have to eat?

Henry: Tyler and his sister are turtle twins.

Me: They’re what?

Henry: Turtle twins.

Me: I’m sorry, I didn’t get that. They’re what?

Henry: (exasperated by my stupidity) TURTLE TWINS!

Me: ??????

Henry: You know, not identical. Turtle twins.

Me: Ohhhh . . . fraternal twins.

Henry: That’s what I said. Turtle twins.

all I want is the flu

Wade is sick. Still. I mean REALLY sick, not just his usual hypochondriacal “I think I may be getting a touch of a cold, so I will need to sleep late and take a big ol’ nap while you continue to do everything for the boys” (OK, he’s not THAT bad, but it does feel that way sometimes). This time, he’s really really REALLY sick–he came home on Monday night with a fever of 102 and went straight to bed. Yesterday he went to the doctor, who gave him a cortisone shot (ouch!) for the bronchial infection, a Z-Pack (in addition to the Cipro he’s already taking), and sent him for bloodwork, which he wants repeated next week (I don’t know what that means–is it good or bad?).

Anyway, he went to work today (praise jesus!) after being home on Tuesday AND three days last week, which was a nightmare for all of us–the kids kept trying to play with him, because instead of staying in bed, where a sick person BELONGS, he kept coming out into the playroom to tell me how sorry he was that he just didn’t feel well enough to help me. Then when I would pack the kids up to go out (because no one could come play at our house, on account of the sickness) he would say, no, no, you don’t have to leave, in this sad little voice. And all I could think was, you had better REALLY be sick, buddy. And of course, he was.

It’s been killing him to miss work, since he just started this job a month ago and isn’t sure he has any paid leave accrued yet (not to mention NOT wanting people to think he’s a slacker right off), but at least he was ABLE to stay home and rest. Which brings me to Why I Hate My Job: no sick leave.*

Wade said to me the other night, “I hope you aren’t getting what I have. Do you think you’re getting it?”

“Nope,” I said. “I can’t get sick.”

“Seriously,” he said, “do you think you are getting sick?”

I said again, “I can’t get sick.”

He started to ask me again, but I think he realized that I was a: annoyed and b: serious. I can’t get sick. Oh, sure, the germies find me–what with Charlie putting his fingers in my mouth and wiping his nose on my hands, and Henry bringing me every Kleenex he uses to hold for him–and sometimes they take up residence in my body and leave me feeling like I’ve been dragged behind a very very large truck. But this does not change my day in any way. I still have to get up, shuttle the kids around, feed them, break up the fights, read the same story 400 times . . . you know the drill. Twice in the nearly five years since Henry was born have I had a REAL sick day, the kind where you never even get out of bed and someone else takes care of all the things that need to be done–and both times I had stomach flu. Of course, those aren’t the only times I’ve been sick–once, when Henry was a toddler, I called Wade at work and said, “Can you please PLEASE come home early before I die on the carpet and Henry has to fill his own sippy cup with milk???” So he came home fifteen minutes early (whoo hoo) and promptly fell asleep in a chair, leaving me to deal with the boy AND get dinner. But we’ve tried to move past that.

*No, I don’t actually HATE this job, but let’s face it, the benefits package sucks. No sick days, and I take the kids with me on virtually every vacation (since June 2000 I have been away from my kids less than a total of two weeks. Which means that ALL the other weeks–and days and hours and minutes–I HAVE BEEN WITH THEM).