Poor bug! He's feeling awful today. Actually, has been on and off for more than a week. He gets these awful stomach pains that have him double over and cry out. And then he'll be fine for a while. Or even for a good half a day. And then they come back. At first I thought maybe it was constipation or gas pains, so we treated him for that and it seemed to go away. Then it came back right before school and I thought, yeah, right. No way am I falling for that -- and off to school he went with a stern warning that he better really be sick if he called me to pick him up. Gets off the bus holding his belly that afternoon and says, I felt bad but I didn't call you because I knew you wanted me to be tough. (Cue cracking of mommy's heart until crushing weight of guilt.) Headed off to doctor who couldn't determine that anything was wrong and told us to go on with the gas/constipation ideas. The pains have been better through the week, but still troubling him. Still in the back of my mind I'm wondering if he's just playing us. This is not jsut cause I'm hard-hearted -- the pains seemed to show up at the most convenient times. As in, he was totally fine playing outside with his buddies all day, but then at bedtime was in dreadful pain and needed to stay up and watch Johnny Test to make him feel better. Or.....he was having a great time all Saturday but, ow ow owwww, could not POSSIBLY get up out of bed to go to church. Well, I went off to work today and emailed Mike when I got there to let him know that Jack had left his backpack in my car. I find out from Mike that the pains have hit again and he's keeping Jack home from school. You know Mom's always know better than Dads, right? And so I figured, ha! Sucker, he's pulling one over on you. Only to get home and find that the poor little guy has been falling asleep all day and hasn't really moved. We haul him back in for doc visit number two and there's still nothing conclusive -- but the normally rambunctious, no-attention-span boy is lying listless on the exam table, not moving or really talking. Clearly something is not right. We take him off for an xray of his belly and some basic bloodwork and just as I'm starting to imagine all the seriously dreadful things that this could be.....something clicks in the boy and he's all lively and chatty and wanting to go to the park. What?!?! Then shortly after getting home (we did NOT go to the park) he's back to tired and --- here's the only good bit -- wanting to cuddle and snuggle and have his mommy around. This is particularly welcome because Mr. Socially Aware was so concerned about keeping his Cool First Grader image that he would not let me touch him through all of the waiting for the doctor. Every gentle stroke of the hair was angrily tossed off; if my arm grazed his shoulder I was struck with a glare of such malice as would cause the most hardened criminal to back away. I'm hoping someone will gently remind him that he is still only 8 and is allowed under statute to still love his mommy for some years to come??
Given the Cool Dude routine, I took it as a sign of how cruddy he felt that crossing the parking lots at both doctors offices today he quietly and willingly slipped his little hand into mine. Is it terrible of me to be a little grateful for sickness??
I was pretty proud of him when he could his blood drawn. A) He was totally brave about it. A little nervous, but he kept it together. B) He was really really curious and closely watching everyhting the guy did and asking lots of questions. What does an eight year old boy with broad imagination ask in these circumstances? In order, here we go:
1) I thought if you take blood out of someone then they will die. (Keep in mind, it was a finger prick and at this point the guy had taken about three drops off Jack's index finger!) We told him how many pints an adult has and you could see him trying to mentally work out how many chocolate milks from lunch that would be.
2) He wanted to see the thing that had pricked him and when the nurse told him it had retracted so you couldn't see it Jack told the guy that was because blood had germs in it and he needed to be careful not to get them.
He was a little horrified by the XRAY tech who sort of immediately told him he needed to take his pants off. Considering we had just this weekend had one of "those" talks about how some bad people like to do bad things to little kids, you can't quite tell what might have beens swirling around his little mind!! His eyes swivelled round and locked right on mine and I told him I'd stay right there. Still, he was VERY careful maneuvering around under the little plastic sheet. Such a cute little grown up boy! Still so fun to see the world through his eyes!!
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