This blog is meant to be light-hearted and fun to read. It is supposed to give parents something to relate to, and for you non-parents, maybe the stories give you a twinge of relief that you don’t deal with the strange behaviors and circumstances a child brings into your life. But parent or not, life isn’t always carefree and joyful. More than anything, this is a blog about life, and life can come at you like a ton of bricks. One moment it can be smiles, giggles, good times, and happiness…pure contentment with your existence. The next moment, your world can be turned upside down. I know from experience, because the mood in our house went from pleasant and happy, to somber and mournful in one small instant.

A few days ago, my son’s classmate died. John was 5 ½ years old. We hadn’t seen him since preschool let out for the summer, but he was perfectly healthy at that time. Big, strong, tough, HEALTHY. He was getting ready to start Kindergarten. All was right with the world.

A neighbor of the family said she saw John playing with his little brother on numerous occasions and that her day was brightened by the sight of him bouncing around, and the sounds of his carefree joy. He enjoyed life. He was sensitive and kind. He was an amazing big brother. He made my son laugh by making funny faces. He loved his teachers, his parents, his brother, his pets, his friends. Until he got sick a few weeks ago, life was happy, good, and normal.

I just got back from the funeral home, filled with 5 ½ years worth of adorable pictures. John with his brother and parents on the beach. John with friends and cousins. John in Halloween costumes. John at his baptism. Many of them were of John in goofy and silly pictures that are just like the ones that fill our scrapbooks…just like our pictures except they belong to a different Mom and Dad. A Mom and Dad whose pain is beyond any that I can comprehend. Two people who will have to fight really, really hard to find the strength to get through this. My heart breaks for them.

But as I type this, my two resilient kids are running around the house, filling it with their laughter and my heart is overflowing. And, I can only pray that someday John’s family will once again find happiness. I hope that their lives never, ever again get turned upside down, and that they will find peace. I hope that somehow, someway they will be able to say that all is right with the world. John would want it that way.

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Yesterday afternoon, we were at a picnic with some friends when my daughter got a blister on her hand. She had been playing on the monkey bars, and though she has been doomed with blistered hands from the monkey bars many times before, she keeps going back for more. Seeing as how this is completely preventable pain, I have a hard time giving her much sympathy. Especially because these are, ”OH!! TRAGEDY OF TRAGEDIES!” blisters. The kind where she cries real tears when she washes her hands and cries, “It burns! It burns us!”

I have no patience for this lack of toughness. It’s probably because I’ve seen my son go through eight surgeries in his five years, and have seen him poked and prodded with needles more times than I can count. He once had an IV in his head, and he has scars all over his hands and feet from all the other times he’s needed something dripped into his body. He doesn’t even cry anymore when he goes to the lab for blood-draws, and immunizations are a walk in the park. Once, in recovery after surgery, he actually stopped breathing. His Dad and I stood there in terror and disbelief as a nurse stood over our son yelling, “Don’t quit on me! Don’t quit on me!”

So a few years ago, when my daughter fell to the floor in a panic as I came at her with a sewing needle to remove her first splinter, I didn’t even know how to handle the situation. At first, I thought she was joking. Because, really? Could a five year old actually melt down because of a splinter? The answer is, yes. My mild-mannered, sweet, wonderful daughter TOTALLY flipped out. She was on her back, lying on the floor, kicking, screaming, crying, snotting…it was unreal to me. When I finally got her to calm down and got that splinter out, she seemed to be rational again. She said, “It wasn’t that bad. It didn’t even take you very long.” I thought we had an understanding.

Turns out, I was wrong. Way wrong. Shortly after the splinter, she needed a strep test done and freaked out so much at the sight of the throat swab that she threw up. A strep test the next year took all my strength, along with the muscles of two nurses to keep her still. All while the doctor pinched my daughter’s nose shut to force her to open her mouth. Simple procedures and things like paper-cuts send her into so much of a tizzy, that we are ever fearful that she will actually injure herself, then go into shock. I can’t imagine a broken bone or a deep cut. God help us and everyone in a ten block radius if the girl ever needs surgery. They would definitely have to use sedatives…and I’m talking about for me. “Ma’am, please put down the nitrous tank. Your daughter needs you.”

But tonight, I looked at my daughter and saw her rubbing her blistered hands without any tears in her eyes. Maybe it’s because she’s getting older, maybe it was because she was with friends, maybe it’s because I told her last night that she needs to “buck up”. No matter what kept her from coming to me and crying in pain, I was really, really proud of her and this new found backbone of hers. Another thing no one tells you about being a parent is just how gratifying such small steps can be.

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I ran into one of my son’s preschool teachers at the grocery store the other night. It was one of those rare trips to the store where I’m not distracted by two kids, or trying to push one of those semi-truck-carts with the steering wheel that is supposed to keep my son occupied, but never does. My point is, I could actually stop and talk with her. Now, I am not one for small talk. I hate small talk. Especially the awkward, yet inevitable, discussion of weather that is the topic of choice on elevators.

But, this woman….this amazing woman who is a preschool teacher, who is ALWAYS smiling and so happy, and saying how blessed she is, and who, when told the children are lucky to have her replies, “No, I’m lucky to have them“…well, quite frankly she fascinates me. How anyone can spend their day with a roomful of toddlers and pre-kindergartners, without going looney, is really beyond me. AND, she has two children of her own. I find myself looking at her with this weird sense of fascination…part admiration, part freak show. Because, having all those children around her all day, and always having that smile…well, that’s as odd to me as the human blockhead.

So, there we were in the grocery store talking about back to school stuff. I told her that I wasn’t really looking forward to the hustle and bustle of schooldays, but that I would enjoy having my house clean for a few hours a day. She laughed and said, “Oh, you can’t worry about a clean house, because after all, we can’t be Supermoms.” Really? Because, in my eyes she might as well be catching bullets in her teeth and leaping tall buildings in a single bound, and I’m just Jimmy Olsen watching from the sidewalk.

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Am I the only one bothered by the radio advertisement for The Petal Study? Have you heard it? They’re advertising a medical study for a new endometriosis medication. It’s actually painful to listen to.

It goes something like this…
“If you feel as if you’re wrapped in barbed-wire, AND you’re lying on a bed of nails, AND there’s a cinder block on your stomach, AND someone is pounding on it…you may qualify for The Petal Study.”

Wow. It makes me want to run out and hug anyone I know with a gynecological problem. It also gets me thinking about how you would qualify someone for The Parenting Study.

“Have your senses been deprived due to a lack of reading anything more intelligent than Dora books? Does school tuition leave you with an empty dinner plate? Are you sleep deprived and exhausted from being exposed to fire truck sirens and the High School Musical CD? Do your feet ache from stepping on errant toys? Have you forgotten what it feels like to have an adult conversation? If so, you may qualify for The Parenting Study.”

I’m sure I know what my friends without children are saying…

“I think I’d rather have endometriosis.”

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