When we were on the cruise, Michael got sick. He started sobbing hysterically that his ear hurt. Except I didn't believe him. He had been particularly bratty that day, and that night was formal night, and he didn't want to get dressed up. So I thought he was just screwing with us. I may have said something like "you are ruining this vacation. Your grandparents, who spent so much money on this, want us to do one thing. One thing. Take formal pictures. So put on your suit and suck it up."
Yeah that. So he kicked and screamed and sobbed his way to pictures so much that I took him to the ship's doctor, where his diagnosis was swimmer's ear. And I felt like an asshole. I apologized profusely and the rest of the vacation was nice. He was mostly well behaved except for some moments here and there, and his ear got better.
You would have thought I would have learned my lesson, but no. On Tuesday, Michael told me "when he breathes he can hear his breath really loud in his ear." My response was "I don't know what to say about that." When going to bed Tuesday night he told me his ear hurt. I told him to go to bed. Because Michael can stall bedtime like nobodies business. Really, he should major in it in college.
Wednesday, I got a call from the health room. Michael was hysterically crying his ear hurt. Could I come get him? I told the health room person that Michael has missed way to much school and he really needed to go back to class. She put the phone down. She came back. "I really don't think he can go back to class."
Now, in my defense, when I picked him up from school, the first words out of his mouth were not, my ear hurts. It was "can I play wii?" So, what happens next is not ENTIRELY MY FAULT.
I lectured him. I told him that the health room is not a one way ticket out of school. That he missed a week of school two weeks ago when he had strep and that he missed a week of school last week for our trip. That school was serious. That he has to GO TO SCHOOL. And no, he couldn't play wii, because we were going to the doctor.
I called my mom, who told me I was being ridiculous and unfair and the last time this happened Michael's ear really hurt. Why exactly did I not believe him this time?
BECAUSE I SUCK SHOULD HAVE BEEN THE ANSWER.
He has a middle ear infection. Apparently the trademark of the middle ear infection, the pediatrician told me, is that loud breathing sound in the ear.
I win. I not only didn't believe my child was sick once, but twice. In two weeks. With the same thing. He should fire me as his mom.
(For the record, the first time my doctor told me I had Lupus, I told them that is not even a real thing. So there you go.)
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We’ve all been there. Just last night Zoe told me she didn’t want to go to tap dance class. She told me she was tired and cold and couldn’t dance. I made her go. She already missed last week because we were away. She’s going to miss again in a couple weeks for another trip. We didn’t pay to just hang out on the couch watching PBS Kids.
She came home still complaining. I took her temp. 102.3. She didn’t even want dinner or ice cream for dessert.
I suck too.
I have parent fail issues all the time. My 15yo son had been complaining his back hurt, off and on, since December. He plays football and does weight training at school. I didn’t believe him. Why? Because Jon and his brother, who is easily 6’3 and weighs (at least) 275, NON STOP wrestle and ‘play fight’, which includes throwing each other around and into things in our house. I finally took him to see a doctor in the beginning of Feb. And guess what? He pulled a muscle. That’s a big, fat fail….
I’ve done this more times than I can count. My kids are really gifted in the area of Idontwanttogotoschoolitis, so I think it’s always that. Frequently it is, except when it’s not. And then there’s the old “Mom my throat hurts” so I hand him a chip and he eats it just fine so I send him (or her, done it with all) to school only to find out later he has strep. I don’t get it, when I have strep it feels like I have razor blades in my throat and eating is excruciating. How did I get kids that don’t feel pain with strep?
I had about six months of Brynna having migraines where I mostly rolled my eyes at her. Unless she was throwing up. I didn’t put it all together, though, because I just couldn’t take a six year old’s headaches seriously. Brynna was also almost completely deaf in one ear and I had no idea at all.
Also, when my little brother was in high school, someone stepped on his toe and my mom blew it off for years and it turned out his toe was broken and the bone was leaking something into his foot.
So, you don’t suck as a parent. We all do it. If we took every whine seriously and whisked the kids to the doctor every other day, we’d still suck as parents because we’d be crazy hypochondriacs. The name of the game is balance.
Every parent has done something like that. Its normal.
If it makes you feel better, Noelle complains almost every day of her tummy hurting and I rarely take it seriously as it gets miraculously better after she goes potty or something but I am just waiting for the time that I tell her she’s fine then horks all over someone at school. The day of reckoning, it is coming.
aw, hon. Don’t beat yourself up. We’ve ALL done this. Mine had strep once I thought she was just being her dramatic self and one other time she had the flu. You just never know when they are really hurting and when it’s just a ploy to play or get out of school.
(((Hugs))))
You are a kick ass mom who took her kid on an awesome trip! And I think I love you even more now that I know i’m not the only one who’s said to “suck it up” to my kid. hee hee.
PS. You looked fab in the pictures.
What everyone else has been saying. My oldest asks me to rub her tummy every day…one day I thought, huh wonder if this is related to her going to the bathroom all the time. Yep…UTI. And it was WEEKS later that I figured this out. Kids are whiners…it’s tough to know sometimes.
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