Katy’s catch-all for all upsets is a tummy ache. Her tummy hurts when she is frustrated, tired, bored, not interested in following directions and when she is stalling for time at bed (although sometimes she has growing pains to forestall her nightly tuck-in). An aching tummy can mean she is experiencing a grief wave or that she ate too many grapes. This has been such a standard of hers that I almost pay no attention anymore to the physical and skip immediately to Nancy Drew mode to ascertain the true problem. So, it should come as no surprise that occasionally, the kid really is sick. Like the time she complained of a tummy upset before bed and awoke us later at 3 or so in the morning announcing she had “pukey tummy”. She made it as far as the top of the landing outside our door before spewing on and off the rest of the two flights to the bathroom on the main floor (god, I miss my en suite). Last week, her aching tummy turned out to be a bladder infection which I would have missed entirely had she not inadvertently mentioned that it hurt to pee. You would think she’d have brought this up in addition to the tummy ache, but her gut overrides all things most of the time.
Wednesday, she played the tummy card again when I picked her up at the child-minding after my workout. I had to carry her to the car after she did her dramatic belly clutch and walked bent over a few staggering steps as we headed down the hallway for the parking lot. And before you waste too much concern, she wasn’t that sick or in that much pain - she just didn’t want to walk. After I had her buckled into her booster, the interrogation began and by the time I was near the four way by the shopping centre, I had made up my mind to take her back to the walk-in clinic. Her tummy - interestingly - suddenly hurt a lot less.
We have been remarkably healthy since coming to Canada. Given that an average winter had me floored with sinus and bronchitis most of the last several years and that Katy was averaging one whooping cold and an ear infection as well, I would say we have stumbled upon some sort of health Shangri-La up here. This is a good thing because like just about everything else service wise up here, doctors are in short supply, and those who are practicing seem to be able to do so on a part-time basis. Rob’s doctor - who I am seeing now - is a kindly old Chinese man who probably should be retired and works a greatly diminished schedule in an office next to a pizza place in a strip mall (I kid you not when I say you find doctors and dentists in the oddest places up here). I would have taken Katy to see him but the wait can be hours and there are, curiously, no nurses working in his office - just receptionists. It’s a little weird. I took Katy back to the Walk-In Clinic which can be quick or long depending on the staffing, which varies without rhyme or reason, and the various viruses going around. Fortunately, our flu season seems to have abated up here, so we were able to get in quickly.
Last week Katy saw one of the younger doctors. There are two, a man and a woman. My younger step-daughter Jordan looks older than both of them and Jordan could pass for a high schooler without much trouble. Wednesday though we saw the older gentleman who is easily older than Rob’s rather old Chinese doctor. He was fairly certain that Katy was suffering from constipation and wanted to do a quick rectal to confirm. And no, that didn’t happen. There is one thing I never need worry about and that is that my daughter will ever unwillingly have sex. That girl can clamp her two little legs together in a death-like vise. So, off we were sent to the local hospital across the way for a tummy x-ray.
Katy has had x-rays before. Last spring when Rob and I were in Arkansas, she was staying with my folks and caught Influenza-B from my nephew and it turned into pneumonia. That was a long 12-hr drive back I can tell you. Katy had not forgotten what an ordeal the x-rays were. She had been crying and of course for a chest x-ray you have to hold still and hold your breath. A crying four year old, sick and wanting her mommy, is not the best direction follower. She started crying before we even had her up on the x-ray table and she cried all the way through (I am hopeful that the days of using her tummy as a catch-all are over with this experience). Needless to say, I peeked at the x-ray as we were leaving to go back to the clinic and I even could tell she was - as Rob said, chuckling when he heard the news - “full of shit”.
Ironically, Rob and I have been planning to do one of those “cleansing kits” and after the last two of days of fruits, smoothies (laced with prune juice) and pretty much nothing but veggies, I am wondering what might be left in us to “cleanse”. Kate is not cleansing as easily. She balked at the Sennekot after day one to the point that she willing drank a half a glass of prune juice to avoid another dose, but her Valentine’s party at school was nothing but a sugar feast and it probably will come out a wash.
Just when you thought I couldn’t be more TMI.
Showing posts with label children. Show all posts
Showing posts with label children. Show all posts
Friday, February 15, 2008
Friday, January 4, 2008
Wisdom: Our Legacy to our Children
I was hoping that when Alicia spelled out the rules to her recent game of blog topic tag - being that there were to be no general tagging of all readers and that you needed to tag people by name - that I would easily avoid this topic. I never get tagged by name. I am not a inner circle person. I just read blogs and comment as the spirit moves me and blissfully avoid much in the process. But, Marsha - you rebel child you - tagged all her readers and thus I was caught.
The topic came from The Daily MEME which is a blog for bloggers who need ideas or topics or just about anything blog. I checked the site out and though I haven’t used anything there myself, I am going to recommend it to at my next writer’s group meeting because there are a few people who have expressed interest in blogging and several others who are old-school journal keepers and might find it useful.
Since Marsha broke the rules to begin with I am going to venture further out onto the limb and change the structure of the topic a bit. There were all sorts of lists to be considered and filled in. What do you want your children to know before they grown up? What do you want them to know about you? Etc. Etc. as the King would say to Anna. It was too daunting and seemed a bit redundant. So here is my version.
Things I want my Daughter and Step-daughters to know
before they are middle-aged women Like Me.
1) You are beautiful. Believe it. Live it. Ignore styles and trends and beauty advice of all kinds unless it concerns skin care (because you are all fair and need to take care in that respect). Too tall, too thin, too short, too fat? Only if you think so and thinking so and agonizing over anything that you have no control over is a waste of time and will cause wrinkles. Happy people accept themselves physically and only seek to change aspects of themselves for themselves alone.
2) Establish good credit early and never be without a credit card in your own name alone. Women are sadly screwed when they marry and join their finances with their mates. Be wary to not let your credit history as a single person in your own right disappear because you will have a devil of a time re-establishing it.
3) A good education is one of the most important things you will ever give yourselves. Don’t throw away educational opportunities and never let financing be the reason you don’t pursue advanced schooling (college, university, graduate school). Your dad and I may not be keen on funding a backpacking trips across Europe, but we would not say “no” out of hand to the idea of you furthering your education.
4) Be inflexible when it comes to your value system. Don’t compromise it to be liked or loved.
5) Don’t expect love to fix you but don’t walk away from the opportunity just because the package it arrives in doesn’t match your imagination.
6) Be honest, but not in a mean way if you can help it (and on occasion you can’t.)
7) Know that I love you even when you are making me crazy, or I disagree with your choices.
8) See as much of the world as you have an opportunity to when you are young.
9) Don’t marry before you are thirty. Give yourself a chance to get over all the Disney princess notions (Katy) of love. Love is wonderful but it isn’t a fairy tale.
10) Remember that the glass is really half-full (or just poorly designed as your dad would say).
11) Be fair.
12) Don’t prejudge but remember that leopards can’t/don’t change their spots.
13) Be a good friend but not a doormat.
14) Finally, when I am very old and can’t see well enough to notice, please pluck the stray hairs that are growing on my chin. (I had to add this because my mother made me promise the same thing.)
Probably not the greatest or most comprehension list ever. It’s not even profound in any sense, but I have come to realize in all the years I have taught, and in the few I have parented, that kids by and large grow up to be who you raised them to be even when you take into account their own particular personalities.
The topic came from The Daily MEME which is a blog for bloggers who need ideas or topics or just about anything blog. I checked the site out and though I haven’t used anything there myself, I am going to recommend it to at my next writer’s group meeting because there are a few people who have expressed interest in blogging and several others who are old-school journal keepers and might find it useful.
Since Marsha broke the rules to begin with I am going to venture further out onto the limb and change the structure of the topic a bit. There were all sorts of lists to be considered and filled in. What do you want your children to know before they grown up? What do you want them to know about you? Etc. Etc. as the King would say to Anna. It was too daunting and seemed a bit redundant. So here is my version.
Things I want my Daughter and Step-daughters to know
before they are middle-aged women Like Me.
1) You are beautiful. Believe it. Live it. Ignore styles and trends and beauty advice of all kinds unless it concerns skin care (because you are all fair and need to take care in that respect). Too tall, too thin, too short, too fat? Only if you think so and thinking so and agonizing over anything that you have no control over is a waste of time and will cause wrinkles. Happy people accept themselves physically and only seek to change aspects of themselves for themselves alone.
2) Establish good credit early and never be without a credit card in your own name alone. Women are sadly screwed when they marry and join their finances with their mates. Be wary to not let your credit history as a single person in your own right disappear because you will have a devil of a time re-establishing it.
3) A good education is one of the most important things you will ever give yourselves. Don’t throw away educational opportunities and never let financing be the reason you don’t pursue advanced schooling (college, university, graduate school). Your dad and I may not be keen on funding a backpacking trips across Europe, but we would not say “no” out of hand to the idea of you furthering your education.
4) Be inflexible when it comes to your value system. Don’t compromise it to be liked or loved.
5) Don’t expect love to fix you but don’t walk away from the opportunity just because the package it arrives in doesn’t match your imagination.
6) Be honest, but not in a mean way if you can help it (and on occasion you can’t.)
7) Know that I love you even when you are making me crazy, or I disagree with your choices.
8) See as much of the world as you have an opportunity to when you are young.
9) Don’t marry before you are thirty. Give yourself a chance to get over all the Disney princess notions (Katy) of love. Love is wonderful but it isn’t a fairy tale.
10) Remember that the glass is really half-full (or just poorly designed as your dad would say).
11) Be fair.
12) Don’t prejudge but remember that leopards can’t/don’t change their spots.
13) Be a good friend but not a doormat.
14) Finally, when I am very old and can’t see well enough to notice, please pluck the stray hairs that are growing on my chin. (I had to add this because my mother made me promise the same thing.)
Probably not the greatest or most comprehension list ever. It’s not even profound in any sense, but I have come to realize in all the years I have taught, and in the few I have parented, that kids by and large grow up to be who you raised them to be even when you take into account their own particular personalities.
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