Hospitals & Babies

There are a lot of great things about being a mom but the absolute worst thing has to be dealing with a sick kid. Today my heart broke in so many ways I was so sad. Baby D has had chronic infections in her private regions. She has gotten 3 in the past 3 months. It always starts the same way, it appears to be a diaper rash, a high fever, the rash gets a "pimple" like head which fills with puss and is just an infection.

Her doctor ordered a round of blood tests to check her immune system to see if maybe there is something that her body just can't fight off. I'm not really worried, I'm not the worrying type...my mother and husband on the other hand are huge worry warts! Today was the big day. The day I've been dreading. I hate hospitals and I also hate how my husband always makes me the bad guy. He will drive us to the doctors office or the hospital and he'll sit in the parking lot or drive around while I do the mean mommy routine of taking her in to see the doctor.

So this morning we leave home right around 10:30 and head down to the Montreal Children's Hospital for her 11:40am appointment to have blood drawn. Everything is fine and dandy. She is in great spirits although she has a slight cold. We get to the hospital, hubby parks by the emergency room and I get out and unload the stroller while daddy takes D from the car seat. They say bye and in we go. We check into the blood center and I'm thinking "Hey, its only going to be like 20 minutes or so...." then as we sit in the waiting room (the chairs in the hall way!) I keep on hearing people talk about how long they've been waiting "It's already been two hours!" I suddenly knew that D was NOT going to be happy sitting in her stroller for that long.

I decide to take D out and just let her sit on mommy's lap. She was content for about .15 seconds. She got out of my lap and decided to walk up and down the hall way. I sat on the edge of my chair and just watched her. She went up to every single person and tried to fist bump them. Yes, my 17 month old adorable prim and proper little girl fists bumps. I taught her that while on vacation and she hasn't stopped. I'm not embarrassed by it, I actually find it hilarious that my little girl does this. She actually TEACHES other kids how to do it. She will walk up to someone with a closed fist and wait for them to give her their fist then she pulls her hand back and says "pshhhhhhhhh". So here she is going up and down the little hall way fist bumping everyone, blacks, whites, asians, muslims, she didn't care. She taught a few of the parents what a fist bump was as well. She was the star of the "waiting room".

As we are waiting we learn that we keep getting bumped back for emergency patients to come in and whatnot. I don't mind. I'm a patient person, my kid on the other hand isn't. I sat her in my lap and let her play Old Macdonald on my iPhone. As she was sitting there patiently hitting the pink little pig and watching it run away, I watched a mother push her 3 year old little girl in a wheel chair down the hall. The little gor; had tubes all over her and looked disabled. My heart broke. Sick kids is where I draw my "cold hearted" limit. I can be the biggest bitch about anything and everything but I turn into a little sap when I see a sick kid.

I quickly imagined what life would be like if that was D and I. My heart broke and I wanted to cry. It made me hug my little girl a bit more and give her a little kiss on the head. D hopped off of my lap and ran up to the wheelchair and tried to fist bump that little girl. She waited patiently but the girl wasn't having any of it so of course the talkative little monster that she is starts yelling at the girl. "HI....HELLO.....HI.....Pssssssh" as she put her hand into a fist. She WANTED a fist bump. The mother looked at D and smiled then I smiled at that mom. The little girl curled her hand into a fist and Demi was content. As the girl was strolled down the hall way D yelled "BYE!" until she was out of sight.

We still had some waiting to do so I put D back in the stroller and gently rock her back and forth. I jinxed myself because I told the 17 year old girl next to me, "Any money says that now that she fell asleep they'll call her." Guess what, they called her the second she closed her eyes.

You do the math. Cranky baby + woken up from her sleep + drawing blood = screaming bloody murder.  :( I was so sad for her and I hated how I had to hold her legs down while one nurse held down her arms and someone else drew her blood. I hated how loud she screamed, I hated how she had snot running down her face from screaming so loud and hard. I did love how she gave mommy a huge hug and wouldn't let go afterwards. Poor poor baby.

Hospitals are depressing in general but a children't hospital is even worse. I hope that the love that D has for everyone will last as she grows older. D doesn't know the difference between races,  religions, sexuality and sick or healthy. She treated everyone equally and it made me happy to see that she was still innocent. George and I refuse to allow racist, sexist, homophobic slurs spoken in our house and I hope that when she gets older she won't find herself friends with someone who does use those types of words.

Our children's innocence is the best  thing ever. I fell even more in love with my kid when I saw how she interacted with everyone.

It's NOT putting your kids down...crazy lady!

So there is a blog post making its rounds on the blogosphere that is called "Stop Putting Down Your Kids".  I read the post a few times trying to figure out where Tara was coming from. Was it written with some sort of humor that was deeply hidden? Was it written from an angry place? I finally realized where it came from. It was written from high above us "normal" parents, on her pedestal.

She says that putting down your children is not helpful, funny, nor will it improve your relationship with your child. I totally get it. Putting down your children is down right crappy. However, all the examples she gave are NOT examples of putting down a child.  The examples she gave are of mother's expressing their feelings to their friends, peers, co-workers or whatever.

Putting down a child is saying something along the lines of "my child is such a fucking douchebag. He's 4 years old and still not potty trained. I think he is mentally handicapped". "My child hasn't stopped eating crap, she is going to become a heifer"

It seems to me that Tara has a hard time getting the difference between parents discussing their hardships, their troubles, their hard times, problems, or however you want to call them and putting down. Putting down is an insult. Putting down is hurting someone's feelings.  Tara went pretty far and even called "putting down your kids" as being selfish.

Is it really selfish? Is it selfish to speak to other moms about issues you are having with your child/children? Here I thought it was a way to interact and bond with other parents and maybe do this weird thing called getting advice. Where should we turn to for advice about children misbehaving, not sleeping well, not eating well or whatever? Should we just google and hope we come up with something good? I know that when D was having issues sleeping I spoke to my friend and she told me about her family's bed time routine and how the end result was her daughter sleeping straight through the night.

When D decided that eating wasn't something she was fond of I spoke to a few friends and complained "Oh my god, D is going to be as picky as an eater as me. She hasn't eaten a solid meal in about 3 days!" and my mommy friends told me about their issues when their children were younger and gave me some suggestions.

You see, some might see it as complaining about our children but NEVER putting them down. Even the complaining is warranted. A parent's job is never over. It's a 24/7 deal. If our child keeps us up all night and we can't function its not good. We have the right to complain, to talk, to get advice. We have the right to NOT be judged for talking to other parents about our issues or hardships.  We have the right to turn to a friend and ask advice and compare horror stories and share survival tips.

Look, let's be honest, no one is going to give you an award for being a great parent but you shouldn't be made to feel like a shitty one for turning to someone to ask for help. If anything it makes us feel like a more normal parent for knowing that the majority of parents are dealing with or have dealt with the same thing.

So how do you feel about Tara's post?