Minivan-Driving-Soccer-Mom

O.M.G. I'm pouting. I confess. I do, absolutely LOVE how my minivan suits my needs perfectly. Seriously. I don't especially want AT ALL to be a soccer mom, though. The end of my work day is not suitable for reasoning with a two year old over why he can't join his brother on the practice field. I come home, cook dinner, lounge a bit in my chair, and work the bedtime routine circuit. Now there is a new bleep on the evening schedule: soccer. It starts in April, I think, and I'm not all that fired up about it. On the sign-up page, it was not an option to NOT volunteer. A pop-up menu asked if I would consider the "coach" position: that was HYSTERICALLY FUNNY! Me?--a Soccer coach. When I settled for the team manager (whatever that is) it begged me with another pop-up menu to REALLY reconsider being the coach. Aaaaaah, I can picture it now: my closet being invaded with coach, bowling-type, embroidered shirts and, heaven help me in the fall: a cub scout mom shirt. I think I will go by some new make up...something girly. Naah. It'll just glisten in the hot-as-hell humidity while I am chasing Michael around the practice fields and I'll look all pastey. Maybe I can be in charge of team-mascot-themed snacks, drinks, and goodie bags. The team ice-cream social? Spa day, anyone? Nick says he will handle taking Nathan to the practices and games. Brain flash: HE will be in charge at the emergency room when Nathan breaks something? Who will be there to panic? That wasn't a pop-up menu option. Official Freak-out mom when somebody's bone pops out of their arm. How can I embellish gatorade bottles? Maybe I will get my own embroidered bowling shirt (in team colors, yet to be determined) with "April Cobb, Team Manager," so I can blend in while chasing the toddler. Such fun. Ya-hieuuuu as Michael says now. His other new phrase is "oh...that's TERRIBLE." Perhaps that's more fitting. I need a girly daughter.

The Silent Listener

Cleaning out some odds and ends while home with a sick child can be liberating. I administer medicine, tend to his every need, but still have ample time to organize bathroom drawers and purge some excess household junk. I ran across a hand-written account on a looseleaf piece of notebook paper. I wrote it a few years ago. I had just finished my first jury duty experience and was waiting for Nick to pick me up at a downtown Starbucks. Here is the written account:

He had normal twitchy head nods, comfortable posture, and rhythmically puffed away on a cigarette in the lulls of a conversation. This, in all appearances, looks like a normal coffee shop patio conversation. As a matter of fact, I am perched in a coffee shop window, sipping on my own cup of brewed beans. Reading the local paper, my eyes shifted to watch the passersby; there's nothing noteworthy in the news. This man looked relaxed and enveloped in his talk. The clencher of this observation is that this man's talking companion doesn't exist. At least in the physical sense, no one sits in the adjacent or opposite chair. No one else even occupies a seat on the entire patio.

What is this man's story? To whom is he speaking? His eyebrows tense and relax like mine or yours would in a talk with a friend. His hands gesture like any good Italian's would. He nods in polite approval to whatever is being said back to him. Something about this unseen partner is making this man's day, maybe his entire life, just a little more tolerable. Whoever joins him in this conversation might just be the key to his existence.

This man is someone's son. He is old and weathered, but at sometime, somewhere, a mother looked down at his face with a heart filled with love. He was precious. He would grow and create a good life, she thought, but fate would painfully prove otherwise. Passing judment upon this man would be easy. Perhaps judgment could be cast upon me for simply observing and trying to analyze this image in time.

When I am warm, he is probably aching with cold limbs. When I am hugged by my husband or children, he probably longs to experience any sort of human touch. When I dig through my stuffed pantry for food, he probably scrounges around for morsels of things tossed out. When I snuggle into my bed, he probably flinches from more scratches on the concrete. When I feel boundless love or validation or comfort, he is probably alone in this world.

He sips the last remaining swigs of liquid from some sort of container for a little relief from this heat. This man has a life. There's no telling from where he came and how he got to this patio bench, but his life should matter just as much as mine. Maybe that is what he is trying to tell his silent listener.

Eating Bon-Bons and Watching Soaps

If I were a stay-at-home mom, how would I spend my days? Nathan is off to school full time (not now, he's still fighting the flu--hence the time to sit and ponder on the keyboard). Michael goes twice a week and next year it will be three times a week. The route to school and back home takes roughly an hour. Seriously. That would be twice daily. Piddling around shops would just get me into trouble. Piddling in the kitchen would just get me into trouble. We'd not be so low on dog food. I'd probably have treatments on our windows. The drainboard wouldn't be stacked so high with idle pans and kitchen gear. Laundry chores could be completed a little bit per day--and folded and put away. I'd dust. Ok, maybe not. I ought to, though. It's embarrassing. I've never been one for soaps although the drama is hysterically funny--in a mocking, sarcastic way. My days at home with gimpy have given me some time to catch up on house work. I love keeping house. When I work, I get by with things being just tidy. I allow myself the excuses of being exhausted from the day or just not wanting to take the time to do something. I'd have all day to think about packing the next day's lunches. I would not forget the napping paraphernalia for little bit's school the next day. I'd sit and snuggle with him, if he'd let me, and nuzzle the top of his head. It's easy to say that I would have all my ducks in a row, all dust bunnies obliterated.
When working full time, I do make time to complete the chores and cuddle with my kids. It just seems so scheduled and haphazardly thrown into a rigid routine. However these things fit into my life, taking care of my family and home are my most prized purposes in life.

Shoo Flu!

Mid-day on Thursday, I got a call from Nathan's school nurse who informed me that he had a low grade fever, but needed to go home. She seems very, very nice. I've talked via phone with her just a few times, and she seems like she is just a genuinely kind and thoughtful person. Good vibes: I'm glad she's at the helm of the "if my kid is sick or hurt" ship. I half way dismissed his fever as a whim, perhaps his sinuses were acting up. We got home, he rested, but we already planned for him to stay at Barbara's house the next day instead of going to school. Michael would spend the day with my mom to somewhat quarantine his immune system. Nathan's fever got higher and higher throughout the next day, and he became more and more lethargic. His fever hovered around 102, 103. Yikes. This isn't my kid, is it? We've been so very fortunate that the boys maintain excellent health. I left school early, picked Nathan up, and met Nick at the pediatrician. They were so kind to get us an appointment in one hour (and we were seen even before that). I do not have to rely on my pediatricians often at all. We keep up with well check visits, but that's about it. It is so comforting to know that they're vigilant when a time of need does come. I would've hated to see the actual germ vapor floating around in that place, though. Toxic kiddo sputum vapor. Gross!
He indeed had Influenza A, and a temp of 103.1. My poor sweet boy. He complained not even once. His eyes were droopy and glassy, his face was flushed, and looked to be in a fog. Since we got home from the doctor, he has made steady improvement. Just a little at first, but this afternoon we are seeing signs of the antiviral medicines significantly working. He dislikes the medicines, but once again, he doesn't complain. Knowing that we'd do anything in the world to make him feel better, we still scoffed at the $85 price tag for one of the medicines. Then we had to chuckle because insurance had knocked that down from over $120! Priceless becomes the Tamiflu when it brings back even the slightest energy to my son, though. He is not groggy and lifeless. When we told him that kite-flying wasn't really an OK activity for today, he asked to do his homework sheet from school! What a determined little learner!
What I've been reminded of in this experience (once again) is how much I depend upon our parents. Michael spent yesterday with my parents on my mom's off-work day, he spent the night at Barbara and Odis's (after she had spent quite some time decontaminating the Nathan-areas of her house), and he's back at my parents' house for today and tonight. Barbara cared for a sick Nathan yesterday, she picked both boys up early the day before when all of this began. They don't complain, they change around or alter their schedules, they pick up extra food, they just don't bat an eye when it comes to helping out. Nothing. Nothing that I could say or do would ever express the amount of gratitude I have for them all. So, from the trenches of this health catastrophe, I become humble. I am fortunate that someone developed drugs to make people feel just a little bit better when riding the course of the flu. I am fortunate that I am surrounded by health care professionals who jump to my assistance. I am fortunate that my workplace is sensitive and supportive of me being a mom and wife first and an educator second. I am fortunate that people are passionately devoted to my children. It is quite humbling.

Reflections from the Dental Chair

Flossing CAN be bad for you!
I should know.
One thing led to another and ultimately I was one less filling than I had been two seconds before. Yuck. Grody. This wasn't happening, I hoped. Who cared about the stupid Super Bowl game anyway. With my escalating status of freaking out, I glanced over at Nick who had this rabid dog, vulture-ish look on his face that was mixed with empathetic reassurance. He knew. I knew. It would have to be fixed, and he could now fix it! One good thing...it wasn't hurting. I would make it until the morning. In all of my wildest dreams, I absolutely NEVER (ever, ever, ever, ever, EVER) pictured my knight in shining armor coming in the form of a dentist with really sharp, pointy things, begloved, and decked out in surgical garb. Ever.
There was no doubt that I wanted Nick to fix my tooth, though. He finagled a plan with a dean, professors, and the school clinic to get me swapped on the schedule with a mannequin that he would've otherwise been working on. Two timer! HA! Come to find out, I would be the only human patient for anyone in that clinic that day--me and a bunch of dummies--YAY for ME!
I will always say that I would rather give birth than be in a dental chair. For Nick to have me as his first human guinea pig, to manage my anxiety (Me? Anxiety?), to have to focus on a SUPER complicated filling repair (according to me, it was darn near life threatening), and stay composed--the man is my hero!
In between all of the injections and gawd-awful drill noises, dropping the pokey things down my throat (HA! Nope, just kidding), setting tooth clamps and wedge placements, scraping and spooning (not as in a cereal spoon, I quickly learned), there were moments that I would just watch him. I could see corners of his eyes poking around from behind the magnifying loupes. Those are the same eyes that I looked into on the day we started dating, the day we became husband and wife, and the days our boys were born. Yes, my knight in shining armor comes with dental surgical garb and wickedly pokey instruments. But, I just cannot express in words how proud of him I am.