Did you know that the number one killer of children under 5 is Pneumonia? I was thinking about that the other night as I stared at my son in bed in his dark room. He was coughing. A lot. Loud and hard and he could not settle down. He had a fever, too.
Of course, I had flashbacks to 6 months earlier when his lungs sent him to the hospital for 5 days. That wasn’t pneumonia. But it was the flu and it started with just a cough and then a fever, too.
So I stared at him and fed him sips of water and wondered what I should do. Of course, I called the pediatrician 5 minutes before they opened the next morning and kept redialing until someone answered. By lunchtime, we were back from the pediatrician and he had finally settled down with three types of meds (one being antibiotics), a nebulizer and a very effective prescribed combo of lemon, honey and tea. It worked miracles. I knew his respiratory infection could have evolved into something worse, but it hadn’t because we had access to immediate medical care.
We have access.
Yesterday, I sat in on a conference call about World Pneumonia Day. Today is World Pneumonia day, in fact. On the phone were Dr. Richard Besser, ABC News’ senior health and medical editor, as well as Dr. Orin Levine, with the International Vaccine Access Center. A number of bloggers were on the call and, for an hour, we discussed the dangers of pneumonia in our country and worldwide.
Here’s the thing. Whether you live in a small village in India or whether you live in a comfortable home in the Tampa suburbs, pneumonia can happen to your children. In fact, a child dies from pneumonia every 20 seconds. The doctors on the call agreed that many are surprised that it is the number one killer of children under five. It certainly doesn’t get the recognition that other conditions do. But maybe that’s because it isn’t a huge first world health priority. For every child who dies from pneumonia in the industrialized world, 2,000 more die in developing countries. Why? Children there don’t have access to care and antibiotics.
We have access.
One doctor talked about the work children with pneumonia do just to breathe. He recalled a time in Africa when he held a nine month old baby in his arms who struggled and struggled to catch her breathe but could not. She died minutes later. What could have saved her? Knowledge about respiratory distress and simple antibiotics. Both Dr. Besser and Dr. Levine are working to increase access in these countries. Anyone can be trained to recognize the signs of respiratory distress. And antibiotics are extremely inexpensive to distribute. As dangerous as pneumonia is, it is also one of the most solvable deadly conditions we’re faced with.
I walked away from the conversation far more educated about the extent of this disease. I also sat down and appreciated just what my children have. Their risk of dying from pneumonia is far lower thanks to a pediatrician 10 minutes from my home, $5 antibiotics and basic knowledge about respiratory infections. We have that. So many do not.
Follow Prevent Pneumonia on Facebook. Take a moment to watch this quick video about World Pneumonia Day. Consider what you have. Consider what others do not. Learn what you can do here.
This is a time of year when traditions find their way back into our home. But, you know what? Sometimes I have no idea where these traditions have come from. More often, I never expected that they would become traditions in the first place. But they have, just because it is what we “always” do. It is what my children expect that we do. It is what they remember and count on and find comfort in.
I often read my 8yo’s writing (*proud proud proud* of it, too) and am stunned by what he remembers. I can’t believe he has this or that stored away and then accessed over and over as “that time when we went to that place and this happened.” Why was that special? It wasn’t special. Was it?
It is dawning on me that I am responsible for my children’s official childhood memories.
Oh my God.
This seems more mind-blowing than the daily exhaustion of feeding, clothing, schooling, homeworking, driving them. Because so much of the very mundane, very everyday stuff will mostly be forgotten (I think). It is the traditions and the trips. The decorations I pull out and the chocolate chip pancakes on Saturday mornings that WILL be remembered. And I am in charge of all that. So I better make it good.
Fall Festival = Good Memory
I’m trying. I know I can’t over-think it. But I’m trying. So, today, we went to a corn maze — a tradition they have come to count on every October. We had a great time. Phew.
Because here’s the other part. While I am responsible for their memories, I can’t control what their minds snap hold of and never forgets. Will my 5 yo remember how I hollered at him when we got home about video games? I yelled that he needed to get outside, and “I don’t CARE what you’re saying, just stop bothering me already!” …Ugh. Will he remember that today, too? Because I was tired after a morning of driving an hour there, traipsing through a corn maze, rallying them through carnival games and driving them back. Sure, any adult could understand what set me off. But a child very often does not. So, will my 5yo remember “Yeah, we did this fun thing but my mom yelled at me about video games that day and it made me sad.”
Mommy Yelled About Video Games = Bad Memory
I suppose we can’t control what sends them to therapy one day. I suppose every mother does her pound of damage.
So the point is here that I’m aware. I’m aware that my children look to me and wait for me to create their childhood. They wait to be exposed to what is out there and then expect explanations. And if we just happen to do it over and over, it is “what WE do, in THIS family” and that is that.
I hope I can do right by them. I know I won’t. Not entirely. And they will tell me about the times I yelled at them someday. But I have to hold on to hope — and go into that weird place of denial most mothers do so that they don’t go insane with guilt — that these two very significant childhoods will be good enough.
I spend a lot of time worrying whether or not I’ve become THAT mom.
You know the mom I’m talking about.
The mom who emails her child’s teacher one week into school to reeeally explain the hell out of her son. Just in case his teacher can’t figure it out for herself. That mom would imply her child’s brilliance with about as much subtlety as a jackhammer and would make her email so long and self-indulgent that this very kind teacher (so kind it makes me giddy, I think she’s so so great for him) would admit at Open House that she hadn’t had time to finish said email. Because that mom WOULD email her the night before Open House, expecting her full attention in some immediate gushing response back.
I worry I’m that mom who asks too many questions and clips too many boxtops with some pathetic hope of winning over the school’s approval and sits hopefully at her son’s desk waiting for whatever experience he’s been having everyday to soak into her subconscious via osmosis while her kids keep their distance for fear of being associated with the crazy lady.
I worry about being the mom who isn’t enough of a squeaky wheel. Who figures the teachers know best and the boys will be fine and she doesn’t have time to stress over it and honestly cares more about getting to work on time than setting aside enough of her schedule to advocate for her kid to make sure either is getting what exactly he needs.
I worry about becoming that mom who is over-bearing and far too persistent and all “howwasyourdayhowwasyourdayhowwasyourday” with enough potential to drive her kid into muted retreat, never to tell her a fracking THING about his day at school. Ever. No matter how many times or various ways or what time of day she asks. He will not tell her.
I worry about becoming that mom who yells, “WAY TO GO HONEYBUN!!!” at a baseball game, in front of all his peers, and then glares at the father who turns around with a look back as if to say “….really?” How dare he.
I worry about becoming that mom who isn’t sure if it was a goal or a hit or a run and is more concerned about chatting with the mom next to her or checking in on Foursquare.
I worry I’m that mom who falls to pieces scheduling activities for her first child and then drags her second along and expects him to behave when we don’t have the time/energy/money/insert excuse to do something special for him that takes up just as much time in our week.
I worry I’m a mom who might explain away her child. And hover. And not let him make enough mistakes for himself. And want just so bad it makes my fingers itch to do it ALL for them (dressing them, homework, brushing their teeth, wiping their ass, ImustdoitImustdoitImustdoitbecauseIwilldoitrightAhhhh!!!).
Then again, I worry both are left to fend for themselves, without any volunteering parent to be seen for miles, from 8am – 5pm, everyday. (Who is raising my child right now because I have no idea, not really…)
I worry I’m that mom who will share her parenting ideals with any parent within earshot — as if she has solved it all and really just wants to impart her wisdom to the starving masses. How kind of I.
I worry I’m a mom without. One. F-ing. Clue.
I worry I’m that mom who just simply HAS to blog her child’s EVERY MOVE because isn’t it HYSTERICAL that he put a laundry basket on his head and pretend to be a robot. Oh em GEE, it’s just SO FUNNY so the entire world MUST see it because her child is SO BRILLIANT. And THERE I’ll put it on FACEBOOK too in case anyone missed their hilarity! You’re WELCOME, world.
I worry I’m that mom who cares more about writing about her children than actually sitting there and prying their wrestling bodies apart to resolve whatever “pound my brother to death” issue is at hand.
(Did I post it on Twitter, too? I’ll be right back, kids…)
I’m worried I’m that mom that gets overwhelmed and exhausted from parenting. And I’ve only been home with them for an hour. How dare I.
I’m worried I’m not trying hard enough. Or trying too hard. Or not that cookie-baking, take pictures of every milestone mom. Or not letting them make the cookies and take the pictures themselves.
I worry.
I worry I’m THAT mom.
(Oh and in case you don’t want to be THAT mom with your child’s teacher, read this. I keep reading it, and then adjusting my panic accordingly.
My suddenly so-much-taller eight year old started at a new school this year. For a variety of fairly practical reasons, it just made sense to switch him. So, considering he would be starting at a new school, where he knew no one at all, I assumed that he might need a little back-up. I was wrong.
After dropping his brother at his Kindergarten class (which is a whole other “How is my baby in Kindergarten??” post that I just don’t have the heart or the time for right now), my now third-grader urged both of us towards his building. He was nervous about the tardy bell (his previous school didn’t have one of those) and wanted to get into his class right away.
Finally, we stepped up to his building. He turned to me. And stopped me.
“Don’t come in, Mom.”
“Wha…? But…”
He had told me earlier he was going to go in by himself, but I’m not sure I entirely believed him. I thought he might crack, or get nervous at the last moment. Nope. He stood there. Suddenly more confident and collected than I had ever seen him. But, maybe that was my emotionally-charged parent imagination — because I can’t imagine he was really that cool about it.
I fumbled for my phone.
“Can I take a picture of you in front of the building door, at least?” He obliged. He gave me a great, almost proud smile. And then he turned, navigated himself and his back-pack around an exiting family, and… was gone.
And that’s when I lost it. Watching him walk down the hallway, while I peered through the door’s window… I couldn’t believe it. Just like that, without looking back, he was gone.
I’m so proud, how is this happening, he is doing this, what if he needs me, he doesn’t need me.
My five year old fell today. According to my husband and my excited seven year (who liked to re-enact the entire scene over and over at my feet), he just tripped running out of a room, and fell. No biggee. Except that he really hurt his finger and it started to swell and he refused to curl it into a fist. So, off to the E.R. we went. A few x-rays and one new splint later, my five year old is officially the proud owner of a slightly fractured finger, right near the knuckle (hence the fancy splint).
This hasn’t been his summer. He has only recently been told he won’t have to get a skin graft on his foot after this happened on the 4th of July. And, since he’s healed so well, he may be allowed to swim this weekend for the first time since then.
(The splint can be taken off to swim. I asked.)
The burn wasn’t his only brush with danger either. The other day he came inside to calmly inform me that there was a snake under his swing. And there was. A water moccasin. I don’t know how he saw it, it looked like a tree root to me. But he did, and survived that possibility of a very serious (if not, lalalalala, I don’t like to think about it, lalalala, potentially fatal) snake bite.
It’s been a strange summer for me with him. I have been worried about him a lot. I’m not sure if it’s burn PTSD (see above), or snake fears, or preparing him for Kindergarten, or what, but I’ve had these recurring nightmares involving only him. Night after night, we lose him, or he gets kidnapped, or he is trapped at the top of a high-rise building in childcare with gun-wielding terrorists in the lobby who just cut off the power to the elevators and exploded the staircases (that was only two nights ago).
I’ve been worried about him. Really stressing out.
But, strangely enough, then this happens… and I’m totally fine about it. Completely.
Because as far as I’m concerned, as long as my child can still skip, and laugh, and sing Justin Beiber songs on the papery examining table tonight, and whine, and tell me he is “so sad” when he doesn’t get toys from stores, and hit his brother with his splint when I’m not looking, and make believe on the back porch chatting away with an old R/C car up to his ear like a phone… if he can still do all of those things, he’s fine. He’s fantastic even.
After years of grounding our boys’ beds safely on the floor, we’ve done it. We bunked them.
See? Don’t they look happy?
Yep. Well. I thought I might share the news scrawl running through my head ever since we’ve done so.
Someone is going to flip over the top bunk and crash to the floor and break their arm (just like my friend’s little girl did) earning themselves a compound fracture (just like she did).
BOTH boys are going to flip over the top bunk and each earn a compound fracture (just like she did).
Someone will jump from the top, snag their shirt, and choke.
Someone will jump on the top bunk and crash through to the bottom, smashing very dangerous, puncturing plywood onto the person below.
Someone will jump on the top bunk, somehow dislodge the wooden dowels keeping each leg secure and unhinge the screwed-in ladder, causing the entire top bed to collapse on the person below. The outcome is not good. (And this is the one I keep coming back to because I like to torture myself like that.)
The whole damn thing will tip over and crash on top of both of them.
Someone will push the other off the top bunk and make the falling victim earn that same compound fracture mentioned above and then the “pusher” will live the rest of his days with deep-rooted guilt as the “pushee” suffers from major nerve and bone damage for the rest of his damn life.
The one sleeping on the top bunk will get too cold from the A/C vent directly above him in the ceiling.
What. What?
All of this could happen. It COULD.
(And if I forgot something, don’t you DARE remind me what it was. I have enough anxiety already invested in this insane mind torture.)
You’re still staring at me like I’m nuts.
Well. I’m betting there’s a fair share of you wondering how I could think up such horrors, exactly. What is WRONG with me? If you’re thinking that, then I might assume that you aren’t a parent. Because this is what happens ALL THE TIME when you are parent (or since I’ve become a parent). I think of the worst possible outcomes all the time for my children. It’s kind of what I just do…
Diving baseball catches become concussions or random stick impalements.
Climbing trees become compound fractures (a favorite, it seems).
Swinging hoses = smashed teeth.
Roller skating = bumped heads and brain bleeds
Summer camp field trips = lost child (yep, I put my cell phone number in their pocket and I thought that was a pretty damn smart idea, so pipe down…)
Pools = stitches from sides of pools, cracked heads on bottoms of pools, and worse.
I could go on and on.
Maybe it’s something moms like me do to protect themselves. We GO THERE so that in case is does, we are mentally and emotionally prepared. Because it DOESGOTHERE. More often than you might realise.
Ok, you’re still staring at me like I’m nuts. Well, then you’re a parent like my husband, or just one of those people who just doesn’t get wound around the axle like I do. Life is filled with risks. Shit happens. We can’t protect them from everything. What will be, will be. It’s not worth worrying about. Get over it and relax.
I know.
They LOVE their beds stacked (so F-ing precariously, OMG) like that. They really do. And the room has opened up so there’s more space to play. And they giggle and send stuffed animals up and down to each other and play games. It’s really great. It is.
So I’ll just keep the panicking to myself. (Oh. Oops. I mean OUTLOUD in front of talking people in front of my FACE.)
Because, really, if I think a bunk bed is frightening, how the HELL am I ever going to let EITHER of them drive away in a car? NOT strapped into a well-inspected five point harness, driven by moi? …HOW?
I would assume that it is only natural for parents to try to protect their children from their greatest fears. Our past traumas that haunt us just can’t possibly happen to these fresh, new lives. Untouched. Unscathed. Perfectly perfect, with no worries at all. It should come as no surprise to anyone, then, that when I make Mac N Cheese for dinner, I scream for everyone to clear far, far away when I retrieve the rolling, boiling pasta from the stove.
“Hey, back OFF. I don’t want you to get hurt like Mommy did. BACK! OFF!” And they always do. Mommy’s puckered scar makes for a fantastic safety lesson.
Ironically, for work, I had just written all sorts of articles about firework safety. All sorts. Did you know that one innocent sparkler can reach temperatures as high as 2000 degrees? Well, I did. And I had smugly decided we weren’t going to buy any fireworks this year, dammit. We were going to watch other people’s fireworks from a friend’s driveway. We should be safe enough.
When I was burned, I remember what my skin looked like immediately afterward. Red raw and then white, white, white, with skin peeling. A horrid memory for a three year old. But there it remains, tucked in my history, while my mother wrapped me in an old baby blanket. With flashing lights at the end of my front walk. And my father running up from a taxi parked at a hasty angle. I don’t remember much else, however. Except for the smell of Ivory soap, which they used to scrub it clean nightly. If I smell it today, it makes me gag. Horrid stuff. I don’t remember the screaming, but I remember that soap. Oh, and the dingy, nude-toned ace bandage, wrapped and wound and ragged about my left arm.
My youngest stepped out from behind the car while I sat comfortably in a friend’s chair in her driveway. It was almost dark and there were kids everywhere. But I knew it was him. And he had a sparkler. His face, lit by the sparks, was alive and THRILLED. So, what thoughts raced through my head? Well, these: 2000 degrees. He’s so excited! Am I a horrible Mommy if I take it away?
It took only those few seconds of thought for it to happen. A tiny spark jumped onto his arm. He’s never held a sparkler before, so jumping sparks are not normal. Or ok. So, instinctively, he flicked the sparkler. Down. And coals from that 2000 degree sparkler shot into that small spot where a little boys crocs meet his ankles. One actually slipped under. And stuck.
I thought his screaming was from the small spark. I was embarrassed. I was annoyed that I had to chase my screaming child up the driveway. Really, all over one little spark? I had no idea about the coals embedded in his feet.
But I did once we pulled him inside, terrified screaming bouncing off the vaulted ceilings, and stripped his shoes off. And there it was. Red raw, large patches of white, and peeled skin. And so much screaming.
I’m not going to say I handle panic well. But I have done ok-ish with emergency situations before, going into a zen-like, partially denial-based, ”it’s all going to be fine” trance.
I didn’t this time. This time I panicked and had to stop my own scream. I asked someone “what do we do?” And cried and grabbed my child and pulled him away from everyone trying to treat him as if he JUST NEEDED ME. I could fix him, no one else.
It happened to be that the guy with the goofy, over-sized, red, white and blue top hat at the same 4th of July gathering we were at was an ER doctor. Somehow, our pediatrician was called. Somehow, this 4th of July guy called in meds for us. I heard “3rd degree” and “burn unit” though. I most certainly heard those words. And I thought of Ivory soap and felt sick.
We see a plastic surgeon on Friday. And my running, wild boy is now wrapped in those very same dingy, unraveling ace bandages. His left foot is the worst. I have actually found myself saying “You got a burn just like Mommy!” As if that is something to be proud of.
My mom was in the kitchen, with her back turned, when I decided to crawl onto the stove, attempt to bypass that boiling water, and make a grab for donuts.
I was in a folding chair with a beer when he emerged behind that car with a sparkler handed to him by… well, it could have been anyone that night.
The worst stuff, the stuff that YOU think is the worst stuff, can happen to your children. I get that now. The control we have over their lives is nominal. But maybe, as I am only NOW (over a week later) able to clean his wounds by myself and tell him how great his feet are looking (kind of, not really), I am figuring this lesson out. Our children force-feed us our own demons. They make us deal with it, grow-up about it, handle it. It’s just a burn. On a limb. I lived with mine without incident, he’ll live with his.
My fears, his fears. My healing, his healing. The left side puckers, regrows, scars over, and moves on.
My kids are being watched this summer by their Dad. And now they look like this.
I could probably end this post here. Yep, with Mohawks to show for it, Dad is in charge all right.
But wait. There’s more.
You see, it has been such a 180 for this household. After being home with my boys for 8 years, suddenly I’m the one working all day and my husband has taken on the boys. He’s a college coach and, while he still has to go into work during the summer, he can set them loose in the indoor gym or drop them at swimming lessons on campus. It’s not perfect, he’s pulling his hair out trying to balance everything, but he’s doing it.
And the boys are better off for it.
I read this article the other day about how good roughhousing is for kids. And I see the logic, I do. But I don’t “get it”. When my kids wrestle and yell and pile-drive one another in the carpet, I freak. They laugh and scream and consider it sport while I holler at them to JUST QUIT IT. I look at them like they are insane. I tell them to get ahold of themselves, to CALM DOWN for crying out loud, to get outside IMMEDIATELY. “What is WRONG with you?” I ask. And I probably have a look of such disgust on my face while I shuffle them in a giggling pile out the door. And then I turn around and sigh at the destruction left in their wake. What. The. Hell.
So, now that my husband is home, what does HE do when the pile-driving commences? Usually, he ignores it. Or laughs. Or joins in. Or, if they interrupt him too much, he tells them to get outside too. But he never looks at them like they are wild, unnatural beasts… like I do.
When I come home in the evenings, I find everyone getting along. One pack of boys in three sizes. They are quietly laughing about silly things and seem relaxed into the evening. And (unlike myself at 5:30 pm after a full day of boy-dom), my husband doesn’t seem all that harried. I suspect the majority of their crazies have probably already been expelled. But no more mess than the usual upheaval betrays the madness that probably occurred in my living room only hours before.
So, we must ask. With three boys and then… me… which one of these things is not like the others?
I don’t GET rough-housing. But maybe if I did, maybe if I stopped worrying who was going to crash into the coffee table and split their head open, maybe if I moved with the insanity more often than fight it — it would actually be easier on all of us? A “can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em” kind of thing?
Still. I don’t get it. But they do. And they truly seem better off for it, with Dad at the helm setting an example for whatever male-ness they hope to be.
And what do I do? Duck and cover and ask that they NOT jump on the bed while I paint my toes.
And hand out smooshy, lovey hugs when the days is done and they are weary from thrusting out their bony chests and verging on whatever it is they will become.
Somehow, while he waited for his Garbage Can sundae at Applebees tonight (his restaurant choice entirely) - he was still. My birthday boy turned five today, and (ask anyone) this child is never still. But he was. For a quick moment. Leaning up against his dad. Staring out the window at the cars passing by. Considering something. He was still.
Five. So much older than four.
…And I WON’T let that blow my mind.
Because I remember saying once a long while back that when my youngest turned five, I would have deserpate, heartbroken empty nest issues and THAT would be when my babies were officially not babies and a enormous part of my parenting world would shift permanently off its axis and change course forever.
But it’s happened. And here I sit, unscathed and at peace about it, really. I’m just not going there. Nope. Why be glum, after all? There’s too much to look forward to. Plenty of chaotic, uncharted parenting moments ahead. So much to finally be able to do together. All kinds of growing and learning and being a little boy still left in him.
We have sundaes coming, after all.
So, here he is. Very still. Very wonderful. And five.
I take it back. It’s not working very well at ALL.
Well. The job is working out, as gratefully noted in my last post, but… everything else? Gah.
The laundry in heaps that we pull outfits from everyday sure aren’t working.
The load of dishes I just emptied out of the dishwasher that hadn’t actually been washed yet isn’t working.
The list of “to dos” for birthday celebrations - cupcakes at school, parties on weekends, for both children and then one husband – kind of work sometimes and then get completely forgotten or half-assed other times. What do you mean goody bags? Oh, give the school notice about cupcakes? Who didn’t get an invite? And other stuff about my husband’s birthday that I keep forgetting too because he isn’t a little kid holding his breath for cupcakes (I think). Yeah… I wouldn’t say these birthdays are working out very smoothly, at all.
The end of school year projects and school year performances that I am not sure how to get to during my lunch break and scrapbook pages requested and various emails that I am too overwhelmed too open are sure as hell not working out.
The tests yesterday, today and tomorrow. The tests that I make my kid study the wrong chapter for… those aren’t working out.
The un-ironed clothes, the clothes that need dry-cleaning, the lint-roller I keep forgetting to buy so I use scotch tape on my pants every morning – not really working.
The neighbor across the street who wants our kids to play and I literally won’t let step inside my front door because my house is trashed – well, now that’s impolite AND not working.
And the wonderful in laws from my brother’s family who visited this weekend FROM AUSTRALIA and had to sit on my boy-stained couches amongst dust bunnies and happy meal toys poking out from between cushions and then those same in laws having to make cups of tea around the unwashed dishes in my sink. Oh my. NOT working.
The crap in my garage that I just can’t get cleaned OUT. The oil change my car needs so desperately. The late to work because my husband’s retreat started early and I had to drop the kids and then my gas tank was empty. The never taking anything out of the frig to defrost, ever. The “how the HELL is it 7pm and the kid’s haven’t eaten dinner yet? OR studied for their test? Or even washed half the playground off their faces?”
It’s not working very well.
But it IS still kind of, squint one eye and maybe it looks like it is, and who the hell cares just call it a day… working. Kind of. If I cut the dramatics (as oh so dramatically noted above), and took a deep breath, and remembered that my kids DID get fed tonight. And birthday parties ARE happening, however half-assed. And everyone does leave fully clothed each morning. That is technically working.
And (*glaring at self as a mother would her child*) who do I think I am? This is the kind of crap every working mother on every corner of the earth deals with every fricking day. What makes it any more special or more difficult for me, huh?
So *straightening up and getting a new perspective* ….I’ll take it. It is working. In it’s own little funky, unfolded, piled in the sink, dumped in a corner kind of way.
New expectations of myself, new transitions for everyone, new levels of “clean enough”.
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