When your child gets a cut on his knee you put a bandaid on it. When she spikes a fever you give her Tylenol or Motrin ... Or both. When your son falls out of tree you bring him to the doctor. If she stops breathing you call 911.
But when your child is hurting on the inside, and they can't say why, what kind of bandaid do you reach for then?
ON MAX:
Maxwell Joseph Oliver Shorty. Born 09/23/2008.
Description: beautiful, smart, funny (hilarious actually), manipulative, agile, fast, verbal, and scared (of a lot of things).
Current fears: (the normal ones)
Monsters
Bad Guys
Sharks
Mascots
Loud noises
Yelling
(Not so Normal)
Seagulls
Pooping
Water
Getting hair washed
Ants
Paper cuts
Last night we went grocery shopping. Grocery shopping was, once, a very enjoyable activity for me. Now, it's a shit show of juggling children, coupons, free cookies and slices of cheese, deals, items. An athletic display of dodging close corners with the bus like MONSTER cart for kids, dodging overly friendly onlookers and impatient kid free 20 somethings alike. A problem solving equation of who gets into the car first, the baby, the pissed of toddler, or the melting groceries, or the exhausted mother (yeah right) and the ever looming moral question "do I put my cart in the cart corral and run like the wind as to not be to far from my children's side for too long, or ditch it next to the space next to me an Piss of a future parking 20 something mentioned before?" and as my very funny friend Katie once said "can I justify the good cheese this week?".
I hate the grocery store.
Yesterday, t minus 3 seconds before reaching the check out, Max cut the webbing between his pointer finger and thumb with the grocery list. A paper cut.
Shit.
As quick thinking as I could be I reached for a bag of frozen broccoli. Max clutched it in his most terrified and painful grasp of dear life ever. He wailed, balled, screamed, panicked, lost control. I threw, literally, the rest of our stuff on the conveyor belt, tossed the coupons at the woman along with the debit card and chanted "your safe, your ok, this will pass" Max said "I'm safe? I'm ok? It will go away?". He didn't realize I was talking to myself.
As I raced the screaming baby boy to the car I yelled "Just hold the broccoli and everything will be alright!!!" Not my classiest or finest moment". Max yelled for the car, for a drink of water, for his sister, for batman, for more broccoli. We piled in. I threw the bus cart in corral (this time) and headed home. Once home we jumbled so refrigerator items into a semi-dinner and Max continued to clutch the broccoli, we had bath time, with the broccoli, we played, with the soggy broccoli. I promised he would be ok without it, offered other frozen vegetable replacements, a no go, even his favorite barbie boo boo pad.
Not happening.
Approximately 3 hours post incident, Max stated he needed a doctor for the cut. I said no. He told me that he would then need a hospital. I explained why types of injuries do and don't need doctors and hospitals. He begged me to call his "Aunnie" an ER nurse, who would KNOW he needed to go in to be checked. We called.
Auntie concurred with the already decided on course of treatment and no hospital. So max called Neeni and Poppi who he KNEW would agree with him. No
Luck there.
More broccoli.
Bedtime came. The broccoli was taken away after much resistance and repeating of the phrases "you are safe, you are well, I'm protecting you".
All in all, it was a hard day, especially for Max.
