This One Time, I Ate a Whole Piece of Broccoli!

You know how Phineas and Ferb built that rollercoaster in their backyard in the pilot episode?  Yeah, that's my summer.  That's parenting -- a rollercoaster.  Highs and lows (sometimes all in one day), and then Doofenschmirtz comes along (usually with the help of Agent P) and destroys the evidence before anyone even knows the rollercoaster was there.

Let me tell you about one of those Mondays.

I got up at 5 to put a roast in the crock pot, got ready for work and headed in early.  Hammer Guy and Toad met me at the clinic later in the morning for Toad's 7 year health exam with our beloved pediatrician, Dr. Fishie (as Birdy recently has taken to calling him).  Usually it's just one or the other parent at these things, but our little Toad is growing up and struggling with some things and we're finding that it's much less stressful to work as a team -- what one parent misses, the other might see.  What one parent forgets, the other remembers.  And we had a few things to remember on Monday.

Okay, none of these things are too serious, I'll admit.  Toad's nutrition can be summed up by saying that he basically lives at the bottom of the food pyramid.  He's a carb guy.  We had a conversation about vegetables.

Dr. Fishie:  "What vegetables do you like to eat?"
(Mom bites tongue.)
Toad: "Carrots."
Dr. F: "Okay, that's good."
Mom: "Tell him how many vegetables you've tried this summer." (This is a topic for another day.)
T: "Twenty-five."
Mom: "Tell him how many of those vegetables you like."
T: "Zero."
Dr. F: "But what's important is that you're trying them."
M: "Dr. Fishie (not what I really called him), how many bites do you think someone should take before they decide they don't like something?"
Dr. F: (trying not to laugh) "Well, you should probably try more than one bite."
T: "This one time, I ate a whole piece of broccoli."

Right.

Other topics of conversation that morning included fears, concentration (or lack thereof), inability to sit still for more than two seconds, becoming easily frustrated and giving up, not participating, quitting (soccer, Wii games, etc, etc.).  Pretty typical stuff for a seven-year-old, apparently.  It's hard to sit in the exam room and talk about these things, especially in front of the child who is afraid of stairs and spiders and dunking his head in the pool and previews at the movies.  But Dr. Fishie has been taking care of Toad (and his parents) since he was five days old, and that provides a lot of comfort.

The big news from the visit, though, is that it's time for Toad to undergo skin testing for possible food allergies.  And anyone who has been through allergy testing knows that it's not very fun.  He had a milk protein allergy until he was three, but a blood test at that age was negative.  For a couple of years he was pretty much symptom-free and we introduced dairy into his diet.  The last 18 months or so, he's broken out in hives a few times, once even ending up in the ER.  So we're taking him in this month and finding out if the milk allergy is back and if he has other allergies as well.

That same day I received a phone call from Birdy's teacher.  She has decided to close the Montessori and move out of state.  Ms. K. has been a part of our lives for many years, since Toad first moved into the preschool room at the big Montessori.  When Ms. K. started her own school, we followed.  She's been wonderful and has taught all of us so much.  The last two weeks have been so stressful as Ms. K. considered hiring another teacher and running the school from a distance, and then changed her mind, and changed her mind back.  Through it all, I wanted to be loyal and supportive, but the writing was on the wall.  We began the search to find Birdy a new Montessori.

So while I cried in my office over the loss of our lovely little school, I received another phone call late in the afternoon.  Brad Madson, Director of Community Relations for the Minnesota Vikings, was calling to set up a time for Ethan and his family to go to training camp practice and meet some of the players.  I'd written him a letter earlier in the month, telling him about their wonderful family and asking if the Vikings could do something for him while they are in Mankato this summer.

And once again, I was grounded and offered much-needed perspective.

Food allergies?  A kid who won't eat his vegetables?  Big deal.

Looking for a new preschool?  No sweat.

We can handle all of this. 

Life is good.