Entries Tagged 'Children' ↓

Look, I know watching videos can take a little time. So certainly wait to watch this one until you’re scarfing a sandwich down at work or waiting for the pasta to boil before dinner. But please do watch this. Because I am pretty sure I can promise you 6 minutes and 39 seconds of the the cutest cuteness you’ve ever seen.

I know I know. I’m his mother. The cutest cuteness? It’s a lot to promise and I am far FAR from objective

But come on, just check it out – even for a little bit.

You see, my three year old told me he was hungry. So I handed over an apple. Dinner would be ready in an hour and I didn’t want his appetite ruined on anything else. But I had no idea that today’s apple would result in such careful consideration. And joy. So even if you don’t think this is the cutest cuteness you’ve ever seen, I will promise you this. You will learn how to plant an apple seed with careful direction from a three year old at the very least.

Enjoy this sweet spring moment I captured yesterday afternoon in my backyard.

Live music has its way with me. No, it’s true. I don’t care what I’m hearing live: a local marching band, typical piano bar music, some hoaky cover band. Love them all. But seeing live music that you AND your kids absolutely adore? Well, that’s just about as close to total rock and roll mommy perfection as I can get. My boys and I saw They Might Be Giants live in Orlando yesterday afternoon – and I am still spinning in a star struck TMBG haze. I think my kids are too.

A few years back, when my eldest was a wee two year old watching Playhouse Disney at dawn while I stared half awake over my bowl of Cheerios, TMBG had managed it’s way in between Higglytown Heros (gah!) and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (oy…) for a few musical interludes. Somehow (and it took a great deal I tell you), I perked up. I probably paid more attention initially because these guys were on my college mix tapes. Oh yeah. TMBG. They’re doing kids music now. Cool.

But it was more than that. Their kids music was actually GOOD. And my two year old thought so too – staring, dancing, and staring again. This music wasn’t campy, not sing-songy, not condescending. It kept their usual ironic, quirky, intellectual flair – but styled it just right for kids.

Really, it makes so much sense. TMBG translates perfectly into children’s rock tunes. In the tradition of what they’ve always done for the past 25 years, they wind kooky story lines in and amongst educational concepts. And kids, who totally get kooky story lines, line up to hear about paleontologists and the periodic table and the vowel family. No they do, for real. It’s utter TMBG kid music magic.

I ordered TMBG’s Here Come the ABCs soon after hearing them for the first time. Finally. Music I could bear and my two year loved. Truly, he loved it. “Go for G”, “E Eats Everything”, “C is for Conifer”, “D is for Drums”… we couldn’t get enough.

(For the record, C has never been for cookie but always for conifer. And when we saw an actual conifer – look out, it was a crazy big deal. And you thought Santa was the only Christmas celebrity.)

Some years passed, I had another son and when he was about two years old, well what should come along?  Here Come the 1,2,3s of course. “Infinity”, “High Five”, “Figure Eight”. More magic. And suddenly, lo and behold, both kids loved their music. I was finally the proud mommy of two TMBG fans. Score.

This Christmas, Santa brought the most recent TMBG creation to the Morningside household: Here Comes Science. “I Am a Paleontologist”, “The Bloodmobile”, “Electric Car”. Crank it up, we were all jamming out once again. It’s a bit more mature this time, but isn’t that convenient – so are my kids.

And now both kids are old enough to take it upon themselves to jump online to watch bookmarked TMBG pod-casts, they know it all word for word, they’ve studied whose who in the band, “no Mommy, Marty plays drums and Danny plays Bass. Sheesh.” True kid fans.

So when tickets went on sale for a special family show in Orlando at the Hard Rock Cafe? I’m fairly sure I may have rattled the house with a jarring TMBG groupie squeel. And I was on ticketmaster’s site in no time.

They Might Be Giants! Here comes my family!!!!

(Well, minus my huz. He was away in NC. And he was missed. He would have been there rocking out with us in a heartbeat.)

So yesterday was the day. And in true groupie form, I made T-shirts for my boys and I. My 6 year old helped me design them, carefully over-seeing the entire process. I could have painted my car too. And made signs. But I didn’t. I’m totally not that TMBG freaky, mmmkay?

But the kids were so fired up. Their first rock concert. It was kind of a big deal.

Oh wait! Another total bonus to our TMBG experience was meeting up with Maria from Mommy Melee and Colleen from The Mess Potential is Exponential. We met at the Hard Rock and decided on lunch there. As fab as the company was, let me just leave you with these words of advice. If you want to eat somewhere before a Hard Rock concert in Orlando, the Hard Rock Cafe restaurant itself probably isn’t a great choice. We had a whole slew of issues. It’s a long story but just take my suggestion for what it’s worth. *Disappointed sigh*

Anyway, so in we went after lunch and we were over-joyed to find that our early purchases for TMBG tickets meant fourth row seats! Rock and roll, baby!

(Yes, yes, I’m such a mommy dork, but humor me alright? This was a big deal for my fam.)

Predictably, when the lights dimmed and Marty, Danny and the “Johns” all ran on stage… dude. Consider me totally star struck. And as they started in with the “Alphabet of Nations”, it all became surreal, crazy – my years as a parent actually flashed before my eyes. We’ve listened to these songs ceaselessly on repeat in my car and on the computer and on the DVD player and anywhere my kids will beg to have them on. And now live, before our very eyes, here were TMBG.

They played a ton of our favorites: “Never Go to Work”, “Meet the Elements”, “Electric Car”, “Seven”, “I am a Paleontologist”. Their sock puppets even showed up – but sporting their new “avatar” looks. Hysterical.

I tried to take a few pictures. But they suck. Want to know why? I was afraid I’d get booted for taking pictures so I took them far too quickly. I know. SO bad ass rock star of me.

So we watched and rocked and swayed and clapped and danced. My three year old stared, wowed – often asking “What songs next?” And my six year old remained in “wheels turning, soak it all in, must process this whole damn experience” mode. He said very little. He clapped only when appropriate. He never lost focus. Seeing his favorite band was serious business. And after retelling a few of his favorite moments in the car ride home, he has insisted that we try to see them again. Twist my arm.

Anyway, forgive this hella long post, it was clearly written in a fan crazed froth.

I’m just so happy I got to experience this music with my children. This music, so woven into our days and trips around town and moments home together, has become part of our lives more than I think I even realized. These are the moments, this is when you realize all the groundhog days are worth it, this is when parenting can rock you and roll you with your kids jamming along side.

Hold your lighter up to that and sway to it, yo.

(Oh yeah, disclaimer time. Apart from the free sandwich I got due to bad service at the Hard Rock Cafe, I received nothing for writing this. It was my pleasure entirely.)

Here is my husband’s Valentine.

Because how else would a blogger give a Valentine but through words, online, for all the world to see?

But I think it is about as close as I’ll get to any sort of rooftop where I can somehow yell (to all who might care to listen) that I adore my husband.

Because I do.

Because I think about who we were 13 years ago, when we first met, with all the time in the world to discover and adore the other’s idiosyncrasies. I think about how we find each other now, in fleeting moments, while caught up in the minutiae of our own groundhog days running parallel. I devour those moments and then wait. They always happen again, once the dust settles and the kids are put to bed. And then I think about us in days ahead, dizzy from time gone by, readjusting our identities as parents and partners.

You and I, we’re not tied to the ground

Not falling but rising, like rolling around

Joy is boiled down to it purest form on those days when we both have two bumping, leaping boys besides us. Days we make some variation of adventure happen on an hour long hike or a picnic at a playground. Our days at the beach, digging trenches and crunching sand in our potato chips. These are those days that we’ll hold tight, and retell, and laugh out loud about how our boys were ever that small and wanting and new.

Oh, and when the kids are old enough

We’re gonna teach them to fly

Someday it will be just us again. And we will come back together, without two cracker hungry children whining in between, and miss this painfully same everydayness. And look at each other like, “oh yeah, us.”

We can always look back on what we did

All those memories of you and me baby

But right now it’s you and me forever girl

And you know we could do better than anything that we did

I want to remember us from before and find all that wonderful novelty. I want to hold on to these regular moments before they fall away entirely revealing two young men eating everything in our refrigerator before vanishing into their own lives. I want to look forward to adventures that don’t require kids menus or car seats or getting back to our room by 8pm.

You and me together, we could do anything, Baby

You and me together, yes, yes.

What an incredible gift to share history with another, to share children with another, to share a future with another. I adore you husband of mine. And I can’t wait to spend a couple hours out alone tonight - time together – you and me, baby.

The First Lady has taken on the fight against childhood obesity in her most recent initiative called the Let’s Move Campaign. I got an email yesterday from a journalist at Bay News 9 asking for my thoughts. And as I was reading the link he provided, I saw that the First Lady was speaking live about this initiative on MSNBC. So I stopped, read, listened and sent him my thoughts.

This is basically what I emailed him.

There can be no argument against that fact that we have a severe childhood obesity issue in our country. McDonald’s chains are often more common than supermarkets in some areas. One third of our nation’s children are overweight or obese. Junk food is stuffed into beautiful, fun packaging. Sugar tastes so damn good and its deliciously addictive. We eat big portions in this country – most of which is just a lot of nothing, filling the hole, cheap and easy. It’s here, it’s there, it’s everywhere, nom, nom, nom.

Bottom line? Our bad eating habits are so effusive that they have become a culture issue. My friends and I ate junk growing up, and now my kids and their friends want it too. And unless we want to continue seeing more children facing health issues and obesity before they even get to high school, we need to change our culture’s ideals about fast food fast.

I have to point out that the First Lady made a great point about obesity before she launched into the points of her program. She made it clear that this is not about how someone looks. Its about how children feel. Both in reference to their own body image and how they feel medically.

There is a huge issue of fat-ism (for lack of a better word) and body image in this country – and this initiative can’t and should not be about that. I am hoping that healthier habits change attitudes on many levels but never single out anyone for not fitting some expectation of “model thin” beauty. We are what we are, but let’s be the best we can be. Just saying.

So back to the Let’s Move Campaign. We have to change the culture of our country. So that means we need support. Parents need support from schools, schools need to actively educate children and funding will be needed to really push a campaign of healthy eating habits forward. Sugar has too strong a pull on us not to come back at the causes of obesity with guns blazing.

So will kids actually be able to learn how to eat better? I don’t think it is ever too early to start educating and empowering children about food. My six year old has a peanut allergy and has been reading food labels for as long as he has been able to read. And more recently, we’ve been taking steps to read the entire label. He knows to look for sugar, sodium, trans fat, protein and vitamins. And now that he generally understands what reasonable amounts of each should be in his food, he knows we need to pick Cheerios over Fruit Loops. He may not be happy about it, but at least he now knows why.

Also, it is my hope that some of the funding will make healthier foods more accessible to families in need. Feeding a family off a dollar menu is a hell of a lot cheaper than cashing out at a grocery store. Healthy eating should be something everyone can afford to do.

Finally, there has been some crabbing about this campaign banning certain foods in school. While I think banning food is never a good idea, teaching kids about better choices certainly is. And then, we would hope, kids will learn to pick better food choices and drive the market to provide healthier alternatives in vending machines which kids feel OK about buying.

“No way, dude. I don’t want that lame Ho-Ho. I want that bag of sliced apples! AWESOME!”

Er. Here’s hoping at least.

And if my son’s PTO votes to remove all sodas and cupcakes and sugary crap from the schools vending machines, so be it and good riddance. But that’s the schools collective choice. I’m just hoping that with focused education and better access to healthier foods, it will be my children’s choice someday too.

Oh and be sure to check out my friend Apryl’s post about this too: First Lady Michelle Obama takes a Bite Out of Childhood Obesity. Apryl, who writes at About.com, was in on a conference call to the White House as the President signed the executive order to fight childhood obesity.

It’s Groundhog day! It’s my holiday. Cheers, a toast to me.

Well, its my holiday in the Groundhog Day MOVIE sense of the holiday. Do you remember that movie? With Bill Murray? From about 15ish years ago? I remember going to that movie with an old boyfriend. I thought the movie was kind of lame at the time. So did he. I don’t think I ever thought about that movie again. At least not for a long while.

However. Years later, this holiday – in the sense that it is in the movie – has become my day. And I am sure you can guess why. Or why any mother home with her kids might relate. Stuck in my own personal Groundhog Day, I wash the same damn dishes every day, I yell the same demands of “stop beating your brother on the head with a baseball bat” about the same time everyday, I ask daily that they eat their carrots, and pee in the potty, and pick up their underwear off the ground, and not slosh every drop of bathwater onto the floor, and stop jumping on the bed, and WIPE for God’s sake, and yes you DO need a nap, and look both ways. Its always the same. THE SAME. Everyday.

In some ways there is a certain comfort in it all. I know there is for my children. By nature, kids require adults to create predictable rhythms and army issue schedules which we can set our watches to. They need that routine. And parents abide. To a child, in an ever-changing world, that schedule is wholly welcome and needed and comforting. And who am I kidding – the guarantee that I will see my 6 year old at 3:45 everyday is assuring and wonderful and something I look forward to daily.

But while I look forward to 3:45pm, to see him bopping up to my car with his backpack on, it always seems that this day could be the same as the last or the day before or the next day coming. The same buses pass me on the way to school, the same cars line up and sit next to me in the car line, the same fights happen in the backseat on the way home.

Its Groundhog day. Everyday.

Ugh, so… do I really need to make a disclaimer here? And say that while this painfully predictable same same saaaame-ness in my daily schedule can be extraordinarily tedious… and even though I admit to that plainly here… even so, I do truly love being here for my children. Do I need to say that? I hope not. I hope it is clear that I cherish my time with my boys. Just because my job is mind numbing and exhausting, doesn’t mean I don’t love it. I know. It makes perfect sense.

But oh once just to throw nap schedules to the wind, to bust out of the car line, to not have dinner ready at 6pm. My children would be better off for some spontaneity now and then. Which we try to do. And succeed at now and again. But I will tell you this. While the crazy fun is exciting initially, they don’t do so well with unpredictability long term. And they are much easier to parent if they know what’s happening next. So the routine is a must. It allows them to grow, to flourish and to trust that their world around them is still the same and that dinner will be ready by 6pm, I promise.

But still. Happy Groundhog Day to me.

And if you forget to wish me a happy one today, well that’s ok.

You can always do it tomorrow.

I dream a lot. And I dream some keeerazy, far too realistic dreams which happen to stick with me for half the day. And very often I wake up and have determined that my husband is in trouble for something he absolutely did not do. But I sure dreamt that he did and that’s good enough in my book. My mother used to do this to my father too. My father and husband commiserate over having spent days in the dog house for indiscretions we’ve dreamt up in the wee hours. It’s just one of those lovely hidden traits that spouses find out about long after we’ve walked down the aisle. Sorry, huz.

Anyway, I am usually not into replaying my dreams publicly because come on. What is more boring than hearing what someone dreamt about the night before? My husband gets to hear every detail – because listening to irrelevant dreams is in his husband job description (however fine the print was) I’m afraid. But I try to spare boring the rest. Because really I know, *YAWN* … so to speak.

But I had a dream that is worthy of sharing I think. It offers a unique insight into the mind of a mother. Maybe you’ve had a dream like this before? Well, whether you have or not, the real reason I am posting it is to rid myself of its demons. Because I am fairly sure I aged a couple of years just by having it. It was a doozy. And to start off telling its tale, I must ask you one important question:

Do you know what mom stress dreams are made of?

Well I’ll tell you.

I am riding in the very back of my friend’s red mini-van. And the car is filled with children that are not mine. Where were mine by the way? I have no idea where they are. And where are we going anyway? Oh look. No one is driving the car. That’s right, I am careening down a highway, in a minivan filled with children who aren’t mine, with no one at the wheel. So I scramble over the seats. And as I am doing this, I look down to see that the kids are actually not strapped into their car seats. And some of the car seats are far too small for them. And the kids are dirty. One little girl was covered in coffee beans. Could she choke on those? Holy hell, she has a handful in her fist right now. But wait. The van is still careening down the highway and starting to veer. Must. Crawl. To. Front. Of. Van. Oh no. My foot gets wrapped up in one of those dangling straps belonging to one of those children that isn’t strapped in. And now one is crying. A lot. He is squirming and its clear his diaper is full. Something leaks out the side. Oh this is bad. Finally, I’m in the front of the van, my foot yanked free, hoping to God those kids don’t crawl out of their seats. I grab the wheel. But, predictably, I could not reach the break pedal. The cliched slow motion, walking in syrup moment of it all was torturous. Reaching, reeeeaching for those pedals. Finally I do and I break. Kids fly around everywhere, I feel thudding on the back of my seat. What have I done? Screaming, crying, oh my God are they ok? I find myself stopped on a back road. I push open the door. Where the hell am I? Who are these kids? WHERE ARE MY CHILDREN? Where is my cell phone? I really need help. So I am searching and searching and searching in my bag when I look up. One child has escaped the car and is elbow deep in a conveniently placed trough of manure. Poop was all over her. And she is about to put it in her mouth because she’s just one of those “mouthy” kinds of kids. I grab her, tell her not to touch anything, and where are my wipes? Standing there on the grass, one hand on her, I am frantically searching searching searching my bag for wipes, pleading that she not move. But something does move – its the van. With the van door still open and every child still unstrapped crawling all over the inside, it begins to roll away from me, rapidly picking up speed. They start screaming again, and the van rolls further away, faster and faster and I am chasing it, slow motion AGAIN, with this manurey child on one hip, and I’ll never catch it (- oh shit I left my bag behind -) the van is gaining speed, its just too far away, a shoe just fell out the side of the van or was it a bottle? I’ll never catch it, OHMYGODHELP!!!….

And that, my friends, are what mom stress dreams are made of.

By the way, my children, my wipes, my car, my car seats, my cell phone and my bag are all blessedly accounted for.

Because I checked.

During these cold, harsh Florida winter days, a mom has to find a way to get warm somehow.

So this is how I roll.

Behold, my sweet Picasso. And before he ruined this masterpiece with one swipe of the magnetic eraser, I captured it for all the world to see. The MET will thank me someday.

Ok, I’ve had it. Call me uptight. Call me a helicopter mom. Call me an old fart for bringing down everyone’s good time this Halloween. But I don’t care. I’ve had it.

I can’t bring my six year old son into Target, Walgreens or a variety of other stores because he is terrified, utterly frozen with fear, by what he sees in the Halloween section. And my 3 year old, who is strangely curious about all the “scary mans” he sees is now convinced those same “scary mans” are under his bed every night. He cries out at about 3am, I go and calm him, “No scary mans” I promise – and curse my local Walgreens the entire way back to my bed.

They’re just kids, you say. They’re scared of everything. They just need to toughen up that’s all. This is just part of what happens on Halloween. Normal kids get used to this stuff. So relax.

Really. My Target alone has larger-than-life sized decomposing skeleton men towering over its customers, menacing witches that scream and cackle and an entire variety of ghoulish ghosts, sounds and things that jump out at you as you walk by. This is a picture (see at right) of one Halloween prop that I took this morning – quickly – while my son hid in the Christmas section a couple aisles over. It’s not a great picture because I wasn’t going to hang around long enough to perfect it. I wanted him as far from there as possible.

Because as much as he wanted to move far far away from all of it, maybe I don’t want my kid to be “normal” either. Maybe I don’t want him to eventually “get used” to gore like this any more than he does.

And as I mentioned, Target is certainly not the only culprit. These decorations are everywhere. I’ve seen automated butlers who remove their faces to reveal skeletal gore with bulging eyeballs. I’ve seen bloody appendages crawling across the floor. Oh and don’t even get me started on places like Party City. It’s every nightmare come to life in there. Check out some of what they sell.

It’s not just the Halloween props either. Its the costumes too. My kids would FREAK the frock OUT if they saw someone dressed like this walking down the road this October 31st.

What the hell am I supposed to tell them? Monsters aren’t real? Right.

Did you know my six year old refused to shop for a costume this year? He wanted to be Frankenstein but was too scared to even look in the costume section. While cowering in the cart with his face buried in my groceries, I picked up one mask that seemed to work. “Ok, OK! That’s it. Lets go Mama, LET’S GO!!!” And then there were tears, tears, tears. We’ll piece the rest together at home. This is ridiculous.

Here’s the thing. I get the joy of gory fear. I do. I think I owned every “Nightmare on Elm Street” there was growing up. I loved those movies and watching them with the lights off with my friends screaming and laughing and peering out from behind our pillows. I get that people have fun getting scared. And folks who want that kind of fun this Halloween should have it.

But these costumes and Halloween props on sale to terrify are set up out in the open, an aisle away from light bulbs, electronics and athletic gear. These costumes and Halloween props that I wheel my cart past daily without warning, if placed in a movie, have enough gore factor to rate that movie “R”.

They are simply NOT suitable to be seen by small children.

Teens, adults, sure. Knock yourselves out and scare each other silly. Good times.

But little kids, who still aren’t 100% sure what real and pretend is all about. Little kids who could never conceive what horror was, until now. Little kids who actually think monsters are real, no matter what parents tell them. Yeah, those little kids should not see this stuff.

Ok, look. You big corporations probably make a lot of money selling all of this junk. Some whiny mom’s post isn’t going to change your outlook on all those dollar bills rolling in. But how about this. Can we compromise? Can’t we at least put all the scary, gory, decomposing, bloody, skeletal stuff in one separate aisle? And then can we put all the cute pumpkins, whimsical ghosts and fun little kid costumes in another? Can’t we at least do that? Because from where I sit, I sure would be shopping at your store more often if I could actually convince my kid he didn’t have to see any of it if he didn’t want to. If you all care, Target and Walgreens are seeing a lot less of my business this October strictly because I can’t drag my kids in there. Not cool.

Alrighty then. I’ve had my say. And my kids are excited for Halloween. We’re watching a lot of “Its the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown”, we’re planning a fun driveway party for the night of the 31st and we can’t wait for pumpkin carving time. We’re making this holiday fun, despite all of the unnecessary fear that now seems to go along with it.

And we only have 16 days until it’s Christmas decoration time. Rock on.

While we escaped without much fanfare from H1N1, the flu season has certainly made its mark on my family already. Because we’re dealing with more flu issues yet again. No, my 6yo didn’t get H1N1 – miraculously, he seems to have remained immune while his friends and brother all have succumbed to it. So I think we’re done with the pig.

However. I decided to get both of my sons the flu shot. Since it looked like we had made it through well enough with the Swine thing, I may as well cover all our bases, follow all the recommendations of our doctor and our school, and get my kids vaccinated.

No big deal, right?

That’s certainly been the case for my all swined out 3 year old. I don’t think he even cried when he was given his shot. And since then, all he has to show for it is a quarter sized red mark at the vaccination site. No biggee.

Not so for my 6yo. His leg hurt him right away after he was vaccinated. And by the time he got home from school that day, he was limping and the site was sore to touch. The next morning, he woke up with a 102 degree fever. The nurse I spoke with on the phone said that this is a normal side effect. He should take some Motrin and he should be fine in a day or so. Ok. The motrin worked wonders. But when it started to wear off, his leg actually started to swell and the vaccination site started to show a patchy rash that spread up and down his thigh.

What the hell? He’s had flu shots before, but they’ve never reacted like this!

Once again, I was on the phone with the Friday night After Hours office. I need an appointment. Now.

We were there in within the hour. By then my poor kid (who was due for his Motrin) was struggling. The fever was kicking his ass. And his leg looked awful.

What did the Doctor say? Yes, his reaction IS normal. It is not an allergic reaction since my son is not allergic to eggs (thankfully). He said he is just reacting to the inactive virus that is part of the vaccination. This is not the flu, just some side effects from it. Ok. And while my 3 year old’s reaction was simply a tiny localized red spot, my older son obviously reacted quite a bit more. He said to take Motrin* every six hours without fail for the next 24 hours. We should also keep a cold compress on his leg and the swelling should be better when he isn’t feverish. And that was that.

His fever has continued today, but the Motrin helps a great deal. So does the cold compress. I am assuming he will be back to normal tomorrow or the following day.

But still. It makes me rethink this flu shot thing. Sure, it HAS been pointed out to me that even with these fairly strong reactions to the flu shot, this is better than having the flu itself. And I agree. My 3 year old had a flu shot last year and did not get the flu. My older son didn’t get the shot and he suffered with a horrible flu for a week. So yes, this IS the better option.

That said, I can’t help but feel iffy about this whole flu shot business. This foreign “inactivated influenza” stuff being shot into my kid’s leg and putting him on his ass. My poor kid.

And with all of it’s bad press recently, I never even asked about thiomersal or whether it was being used in these vaccinations. (*hanging head in shame*) And I didn’t ask about it yesterday either. (*smacking forehead*) I gather it is rarely used any longer – or if it is, it is used in very small doses.

So where does this leave my kids? Well, they’re vaccinated – and my 6 year old does seem to be soldiering back.

But next year? Would I do this again? Not after a long, hard talk with my doctor to see what to expect. Because the Swine Flu was less of a hassle for my 3 year old than the side effects of the vaccination were for my 6 year old. I know we were lucky with H1N1 – VERY lucky. And fairly unlucky with the flu shot. So I am trying to keep my head about me through all of this – but I just can’t help but feel a bit iffy… maybe I even have a little flu shot remorse.

Flu exposures, flu shots, fevers, misery, side effects of all of it… maybe there is no escape. Maybe the flu gets you one way or the other – its just a matter of how MUCH it gets you.

Regardless, I am OVER this Flu season already. I hope we’ve paid our dues. We’ve done our time. So. Leave us alone now, ok?

*Note: While I followed the directions on the Motrin bottle, the Dr. actually noted that I had been under-dosing him for his size and that might explain his further swelling and recurring fever. It was a quick reminder that I should always check in with my pediatrician regarding dosage amounts. As they grow, so does their dosage. I should know better, Chandra Wilson told me so.