The Evil Nature of Playstructures

Something happened yesterday that I've had a hard time getting out of my head. I'm traumatized.  Man..


There are moments in life when you come face to face with one of your biggest fears and you find yourself with choices: a) run; b) cry; c) remain calm; d) stare it down; e) fight through it!


Sadly, I did not choose this moment to showcase my own strength; rather, I chose b. Well, didn't choose it really, it just happened that way.


So, first, picture this:



That's right. Playstructure. So much fun! Hannah loves it and we usually go Saturday mornings after dance class with some of her friends. Hannah is one of the brave ones who goes all the way up to the top and sits in that little bubble thing.


So yesterday, we went with two of her friends. Like usual, Hannah went immediately to the bubble - the same green one up there in the pic. While the other two moms went to get food, I agreed to watch the kids.


As I'm watching, smiling and waving, one of her friends comes in with her. How cute, I think, as they sit there together and navigate with the steering wheels. Then, I watch as the other little girl reaches behind Hannah's head, grabs her entire pony tail and yanks. Hard. Hannah's head snaps back so I can see her vulnerable little neck. My heart jumps. Okay, I think, not such a big deal if it only happens once. I make excuses: The other little girl has short, dark hair - maybe she just likes Hannah's long, strawberry blonde hair. So I give her the benefit of the doubt.


In the aftermath, Hannah looks shocked, and a little hurt, but she rubs the top of her head and does not cry. Just as my breathing returns to normal, the other little girl reaches out and does it again, except even harder. Hannah starts to cry. I run over to the bottom and yell up the tube - Hannah come down here. Come on baby! But she's crying and I don't know if she can hear me. Then, she starts crying harder. I back up and look up at the bubble again and am horrified at what I see. This girl is whaling on my kid. Drawing her little fist back high above her head and crashing it down on my kid's head over and over, each time eliciting a scream from Hannah.


She's hurting my child and I can't get to them to break it up. I panic.


I go over to the bottom again and yell while weighing the consequences of climbing up in there myself. Hannah starts to mellow out. I back up and look up into the bubble and see her trying to leave, but the other little girl is in her way and I see that little dagger-fist raise again. I run over to the bottom again as my kid screams and yell, _____ STOP HITTING HER! STOP HITTING HANNAH! I'm crying and other people are coming over. One mom offers to send her tiny, skinny teenage daughter up there to get her and I say Please! So she heads up and I back up and try to see as my kid screams again. By this time, Hannah is on the ground, so I can't really see her, but I can see the other little girl above her.


What the---???


The other girl's mom comes in with food and takes one look at my face, streaming with tears, and asks What's wrong? Are you okay?


Now, excuse my melodramatic answer, but I said, through tears, your kid is beating the crap out of mine!


She looks stunned, then rushes to put her food down and heads into that tiny tube herself. She comes out clutching my kid, who's clinging to her and crying. I grab her and take her into a corner and sink into a chair.

I am still in shock. Hannah actually has some small bruises on the side of her forehead now. I think this whole thing was way more terrifying because I could not get up there, had to watch and struggle for calm when I just wanted to scream and STOP THE MADNESS. I was powerless. And my kid was scared and hurting. And I have an imagination that sometimes becomes my biggest enemy!


The other mom cried. She apologized. She, like me, could not eat her food. She was in shock, did not know her kid could do something like that. But get this: her kid got a mild "talking to." This mom DID NOT remove her child from the situation. In fact, her kid sat in close proximity to mine while we all tried to eat and I acted like I was okay with it. WHAT IS HAPPENING TO PARENTING NOWADAYS?


To give this kid credit, she really is - usually - such a sweet little girl. She's so petite and cute and quiet. But, up there in that bubble, she looked as if she KNEW there was no one there but her and my child, and she took full advantage of that fact. She let a fury loose up there, y'all. Maybe it's true what they say: it's the quiet ones ya have to worry about.


I don't know how I'll look at this other little girl anymore. I gave the mom a hug and told her not to worry about it - it was done. But is it? I know I don't ever want to risk that happening again, so I don't think we'll be going back to that play structure with the other little girl there. I know kids sometimes snap and have their moments, so maybe I should just wash this under the bridge, but I just hope I can. And then I hope this little girl NEVER, EVER touches my kid again.


To make up for it, the OTHER little girl who was there (and who is now Hannah's best friend), her mom, Hannah and I all went to see a movie at the movie theater yesterday afternoon. YAY for the movies and popcorn and candy! :) It makes everything all better!


Except, Hannah whimpered a lot in her sleep last night and I couldn't help wondering if she was feeling the brutal hand of that other little girl all over again.


And that sucks, cuz once again, I was in a position where I could not help her.


We'll be alright. We just have to teach her how to defend herself, my husband says. Maybe we'll get her into a karate class soon :)

Bug Off!

My house is quiet.

Both girls are at school and Cohen is sleeping.

Wish it could be like this more often. *sigh* Someday... right?

So I get this letter from Jenna's school yesterday. Anything beyond a three day abscence for illness is considered unexcused unless I supply a doctor's note - standard law, I know, but oh boy! This is going to be fun when all three of my kids get into the school system! So here's why she was home: last weekend, Jenna started to get extremely irritable and ANGRY with anybody within venting distance. She does not understand when she's sick and she tends to let everybody know she's NOT HAPPY! Well, being the sensitive mom that I am :) I kept her home on Monday and scheduled a doctor's appointment for Tuesday. In the meantime, Jenna developed a bad cough at night when we went to lay her down. Monday night, she poked her finger into her ear several times, so I figured she had - as the doctor likes to say - monkeys in there. Tuesday the doctor confirms it - both ears infected. We pick up antibiotics and head on home to start them that evening. She's still battling the ear Wed and I figure antibiotics take at least 24 hours, right? So I keep her home. She's also still NOT HAPPY. We're exhausted and would love to ship her off on Thursday with the big yellow bus; however, she began to blow big green bullets from her nose constantly and I figured one look at that goo, and the folks at school would be calling me to pick her up, and being the nice person that I am :) I didn't want her to pass germs along to everyone in her class, so I kept her home Thursday. On Friday, same thing, except now she sleeps - a lot! For hours. I'm feeling very happy with myself because I decided to keep her home one more day and she obviously needs it!

So now, this letter, sicking the state laws on me. Youch! Here I am, trying to keep my kid from spreading this stuff around - like we need more sickness at school, right? - and giving my kid time to actually recoup and I feel like a bad mom! Like I'm lazy or something for not sending my kid off to school. Believe me, lazy would have been sending her, not keeping her home! It was a rather miserable week - for all of us!

Alright. So I called the doctor's office and spoke to someone there about getting a note. Office girl starts barraging me with questions - trying to CALL ME OUT, maybe? Hey, I feel like shouting, from now on I'll send my kid, sick or not, so the school can make the call - and possibly catch flying bugs in the meantime!!! Instead, I patiently (I think) tried to explain that my daughter has a disability - mild CP, brain disorder and seizure disorder - and not only goes down hard, but is more likely to have seizures if we push her when she's down. Last year, she had a major one this time of year at the tale end of a virus. It's like I have to justify my parental decision to keep her home and that SUCKS. So now, I wait for the doctor to approve the note and I will probably have to go pick it up at the office and hand deliver it to the school - one more thing to interrupt the PEACE AT LAST component of my day. That's my vent. Sorry. It's just... well, don't these people understand that sometimes they make you feel like you should just go ahead and send your kid anyways? Which, I bet, is exactly what some parents end up doing rather than hassle with a doctor's note or explanations!

I know they're just doing their jobs and this is just a form letter that everybody gets, but still...

I really dislike this time of year because illness sucks the life out of everyone! Nearly everyone I talk to is sick or has sick kids and some kids get sick for so long! Just after New Year's all three of my kids got sick from a 24 hour bug that really did last 24 hours for the other four families from our circle of friends but knocked my kids out for nearly two weeks. So, like I said, I will have fun when all three kids are in school, though I can hope their immune systems get stronger by then.

For their sake and for my sanity ;)

Wishing you all health, and if you happen to be battling something already, a SPEEDY recovery!

Home Again

Just a brief post to say Cohen has been home since Wed afternoon. He was sent home with so many prescriptions I had to create a med chart for him so we could get it straight. There are 7 medications, all taken at different frequencies, some refrigerate, some not. Two once a day, a few three times a day, one every eight hours and one every four. But if they help him I can't complain.

Yesterday he started to run a fever and moaned in his sleep. Last night he woke up screaming in pain. Keep your fingers crossed today is a great day! We don't want to go back there again! But we'll do what we have to do, of course, to help him cuz I'll never - NEVER - get used to seeing him in pain like that.

I am so proud of our guy. He is a trooper and I write and keep record because someday I want him to know what he went through and remember what a strong little boy he is.

At the hospital with a beautiful smile for mommy!

So handsome!

Back to...There

Cohen is back in the hospital again.

He had an abscess in his chest wall that needed to be removed, so they rushed him into surgery this morning after a grueling 14 HOURS in the ER yesterday. Man, I love that place...

He is doing well, but we have to pack the abscess sight with stuff to keep it dry and clean for a few days - an open wound, not pretty! Craig says with this new scar and his G-Tube scar, he'll look like a gunshot victim some day and have quite the story to tell. So not funny?! Have to find the humor somewhere...

Not sure what in the heck is going on. Looking for answers but still not getting any. So frustrating. They deal with this all the time, they say. Well, not us, I want to scream!!! Too much, too fast in the past 8 months...

His lymph node was swollen so they biopsied it and sent it out to see if anything strange is going on. What wouldn't be strange at this point?

For the past few days, he's been increasingly fussy, crying a lot, went ballistic if you tried to grab him under the arms to pick him up, or, well, tried to touch him anywhere for that matter - this usually got worse when his new nerve-pain medicine would start to wear off before his next dose. He barely slept, we barely slept and I worried a lot. Faith, I tell myself. Gotta have it at times like these, but it's hard.

Then, we noticed what looked like a jumbo-sized marble sticking out from his chest wall yesterday morning. Went to the doc - she was puzzled and called ahead to ER; she didn't mess around. She even went so far as to say: "mom, you've been right about this kiddo each time he's had a problem and you need to know that your instincts are right on." Wow, a doctor that compliments the worried parent. Novel concept!

The nurse in the ER wasn't so encouraging, however. Had to tell her to back down and quit being rude after she got snippety with me. My son was breaking into hives and screaming his head off. Hello?! Something's not right. She tried to tell me I needed to listen to her - didn't even give me a chance to say anything - and I told her I wanted a new nurse. She says sorry, we're having a rough night and I said but so are we.

!!!

Nasty nurse turned nice nurse and we all had happy, fuzzy feelings. Not really, but ya know ;) Didn't have to tell her again. Wish it worked that well with children - HA!  Turns out he was having quite the reaction to the IV antibiotics.  Sometimes parents are right.  Crazy thought.

Anyways, he can probably come home in a few days, but here we go again. I feel like a wrestler in a ring, tired but fighting. DING, DING, DING. Round number...well...lost count :(

Wish us luck and prayers always appreciated! :) Hope you are happy and well...