Nathan has his first visit to the Emergency Room on Wednesday. We were at the park, having a good ole time together. We were the only ones there. We had initially met one of my friends and her kids, but after they left, I decided to let Nathan stay a bit longer. Then, a couple of men appeared from nowhere and walked around the play area, staring at us the whole time. Then they stood off to the side and talked to each other for a few minutes while continuing to stare at me and Nathan. They started walking back towards the play area, making me nervous… they were in their early-to-mid twenties and had no business hanging out at a playground without having kids there themselves. They sauntered over to the swings and proceeded to swing while still watching us.

I grabbed ahold of Nathan’s hand and told him that it was time to go. I’m not a paranoid person, but I started thinking that if I screamed, it would take the nearest person at least 30 seconds to run to us… that is, if anyone even bothered to help. I had tunnel vision- I was focused on getting us out of there so I wasn’t paying as much attention as I should have been to Nathan, therefore I was unable to anticipate what he did next.

When he saw we were walking back towards his stroller, he had a temper tantrum and collapsed into an angry little crying heap on the ground. Since I had a firm grip on his hand, it dislocated his elbow. I realized something was wrong when Nathan started crying in pain, grabbing his forearm with his right hand, and pinching his skin.

“Hurt! Scared, Mommy!” he wailed as he cradled his injured arm.

When I saw what I had done, I got sick to my stomach and almost threw up on myself. Fortunately, the hospital was just a couple blocks away, so we made a trip to the ER. The doctor was very nice and empathetic, and said that what happened is actually quite common and is called Nursemaid’s Elbow.  He was able to quickly maneuver the elbow back into place.

When the doctor told Nathan it was all done and okay to use his arm now, Nathan refused to believe him. He walked to the door and jiggled the door handle.

“Wanna go bye bye! Go home? Pweese? Home?” he cried as tears trickled down his cheeks.

“Not yet, little man. I need you to give me a high five so I can see that you move your arm,” replied the doctor.

“NO! HOME!” Nathan wailed pitifully.

“Come here, Nathan,” I said. As I gathered the boy up in my arms I said, “I’m going to kiss your elbow, and when I do, it’s going to be all better ok? No more hurt.” And I kissed his little arm up and down. When I was done, Nathan stopped crying, raised his arm to his face, and gave me a big tear-filled smile.

“All better, Mommy! Thanks!” he said happily.

Sometimes they just need Mommy’s kiss, huh?

Well, the story doesn’t end there, unfortunately. A couple days later, on Friday, we went to a Mommy Lunch. It’s hosted once or twice a month by a local hospital for moms (and dads too!). It’s free, and it lasts for about an hour. They have toys set out and volunteers there to watch the kids so the moms can enjoy a meal while the kids play. It was raining that day, so when it was time to leave, I held my purse, diaper bag (each weighing approximately as much as a Sumo Wrestler), and a giant umbrella with my left arm. I held on to Nathan with my right hand.

I wasn’t thinking.

And of course, in the parking lot, what did Nathan do?

He LUNGED away from me. While I was holding his hand. In the rain. With cars around.

So his elbow was dislocated a SECOND time in just two days.

Panicking, I picked him up and raced back inside. The lady who runs the mommy group is a nurse, so I went straight to her, told her what happened, and asked her if she could fix it. By this time, I was sobbing. I could not believe this happened to my child AGAIN… TWICE. She said that yes, she knew how to fix it, but she wasn’t legally allowed to so I would have to take him to the ER again.

Which would have been fine. But our insurance copay for emergency room visits is $100. We aren’t poor by any means, but we are a family of three living off of one income, a total of $200 for two ER visits is a lot of money to fork out unexpectedly in a span of just two days. So I relayed my concern to the nurse, and she is actually close friends with Nathan’s pediatrician.  A $25 copay for an office visit is much more manageable than $100. Unfortunately, she could not get ahold of him on his cell, so she tried calling the office. They said they preferred I take him to the ER. When she told them about the steep copay, they said they could look at him if we stopped first and got him x-rayed. That was so unneccessary… his arm was not fractured or broken. There was no swelling, no discoloration, and Nathan was running around the room playing.  He was not in nearly as much pain as he was when it happened at the park. I was waaaaay more upset by his dislocated elbow than he was.

So anyway, after the pediatrician’s office said that, I said I would call my husband and see what he wanted to do. I hated bothering him at work, and I knew he would be aggravated with me for holding onto the same arm that Nathan dislocated just two days prior. I feel so horrible for repeating the same mistake again. I’m supposed to protect my child from harm, not cause it.

Paul wanted to come by and see how it looked (since he was nearby anyway, finishing up his lunch break) and then we would figure out what to do from there. When he arrived, he took one look at Nathan’s elbow and said that we definitely needed to go to the ER. It wasn’t distorted or anything, but it was limp and it hurt Nathan to move it. Paul didn’t want to try to move the arm around and said it was best to let a doctor do it. It’s better to be safe than sorry…

SO. Back to the ER. We were taken into the triage room after only 5 or 10 minutes, ahead of the other people that were there. Once we were in the triage room (they recognized us since we were just there), a Physician’s Assistant came in, reset Nathan’s elbow in less than a second, and we were ready to go. He also showed me how to do it myself since this keeps occurring. As we were waiting on the paperwork, I talked to the triage nurse about what happened. I was a sobbing mess; I felt absolutely horrible for allowing this to happen again. She told me that yes, I was holding the same arm, but had I been holding the other arm, the it could have happened to the other arm. She said that some kids are just inherently more prone to it because of soft, growing ligaments and that it’s not something I should beat myself up over because it’s a fact-of-life; it happens. Some kids, she said, have been in the ER 10-15 times for it. It’s quite common and it’s something they see all the time. She also said it’s even more common in strong-willed children (like Nathan) because they try even harder to get away from their parents. Regardless, I still felt horrible.

So once the paperwork came, she sent me to checkout. And get this… they didn’t charge a copay!! Can you believe it? I even specifically asked if there was one, just to be sure, and they said no.

Wow. What a relief.

So I’ve come up with a plan to hopefully prevent this from ever happening again. Nathan has a little monkey harness. It’s like a tiny back-pack that straps around his chest, and it has a really long tail that the parent can hold on to. I haven’t used it yet because, I didn’t know this until I became a mommy, they are “controversial.” Some people are busybodies, and they opine that putting a child on a harness akin to treating them like an animal. They bloviate about how parents should teach their children not to run away from them, and how parents need to parent, and how “leashes” (as they love to call them) are the lazy way out.

Well, these people apparently have never had an abnormally strong-willed, exceptionally determined child with a habit of attempting to wrench himself away from the parent with such force that his elbow becomes dislocated. So their opinions about how I choose to keep my child safe are irrelevant to me. If anyone has the audacity to reprimand me for choosing not to risk another dislocated elbow, I will politely inform them them that this is my choice to keep my child safe due to being in the ER twice for a dislocated elbow. I am not going to be leading him around like a puppy. I will have him hold my hand and the harness will be a backup, that way if he lets go of my hand, there is no danger of him running into traffic, etc.

I’m so glad this week is over. It was emotionally exhausting. Nathan is perfectly fine now, though. After they reset it, any pain he had completely disappeared. There is no lingering pain, and he immediately regained full use of his arm again. He’s back to being his typical little self. I was more traumatized by the two ordeals than my child was. I hope it never, ever happens again. It’s such a nauseating, disheartening feeling to cause your child pain.

Today there is some improvement, thankfully. His fever is finally gone, but he’s definitely still sick and VERY irritable.  But he is eating a little more and is finally drinking fluid on his own. (Before this, he was refusing to drink anything, and I was having to administer Pedialyte in a medicine dropper to him to prevent dehydration.)

I’m hoping that he will be better in a couple of days. In the meantime, bear with me because it’s been incredibly hard to post anything with him being so sick.

“Nathan, no no! You don’t touch the door!” I said as I shut the door behind me.

“I sowy!” Nathan said.

“I know you’re sorry,” I said, “but you’re not allowed to touch the door. You locked Mommy out again.” Then Nathan’s little eyes filled with tears.

“I in biiiiiiiiiiiiiiig twouble,” he moaned as the tears spilled out of his eyes, leaving little paths of glistening sadness on his cheeks. I may have melted just a little. I opened up my arms and drew my son to me.

“This is your warning,” I said as I held him close. I really, REALLY didn’t want to put the little guy in time out because my heart was already breaking seeing him cry. “But next time, ” I continued, “you won’t have a warning. You’ll have Big Trouble for sure and a time out.”

“I sowy, Mommy” he said against my neck.

I love that kid. I love him more than anything in this world.

I mean, really, really stubborn. And strong-willed. Determined. Steadfast.

Just a few days ago, I heard one of my cats meow in exasperation. I slinked through the kitchen and caught Nathan in the living room, throwing tufts of cat fur into the air and DANCING IN IT while clapping his hands. I saw my cat Andrew hunkered wide-eyed in the corner. He looked as if he thought he was naked.

I bet he felt naked with all the fur Nathan had pulled out and was DANCING in.

“NO! Nathan, that’s not nice! You don’t hurt the cats… Time Out!” I said as I grabbed his cat-fur covered hands. I steered him into his Time Out Corner and set the timer for three minutes (the amount of time Nathan gets in time out depends on his infraction. Milder infractions get him two minutes). When three minutes was up, I returned to Nathan and squatted down on his level.

“Do you understand why Mommy put you in time out?” I asked.

He looked at his hands.

“You pulled out the cat’s fur. You hurt the cat. No touching the cats, Nathan.”

“I’m sorry,” he replied as he did the sign for sorry across his chest.

“Nathan, I need you to say ‘No cat,’” I said.

Nathan mumbled something unintelligible.

“If you want out of time out, you need to say ‘No cat,’” I prodded. Nathan crossed his arms over his chest.

“NO!” he yelled.

“Okay then, you made the choice to have more time out,” I replied. I set the timer for another minute. When the timer went off, I repeated the process.

Again.

And again.

And again.

And again…

In fact, I repeated the process a grand total of THIRTY SEVEN times. That means that THIRTY SEVEN times in a row, I asked Nathan if he was ready to say “No cat.” And THIRTY SEVEN times in a row, Nathan obstinately refused. Until finally, a grand total of FORTY minutes later (including the three minutes for his first time out) and with tears streaming down his cheeks and snot dripping out his nose, he begrudgingly gave me what I asked for.

“No cat,” he whispered. That’s right. He wouldn’t even speak it. HE WHISPERED IT.

With his arms crossed over his chest and his chin up in the air.

But at least he said it, right? My kid may be stubborn, but his mama is even MORE stubborn. Getting tired of the discipline and giving in is not an option for me… giving in means that Nathan would know that all he needs to do to get his way is put up a fight and eventually I’ll cave. And then? Then I’m left dealing with an A-1 Brat. Not gonna happen in this house. It is my responsibility to prepare this child for life, and letting him have his way teaches him nothing.

Even if it takes THIRTY SEVEN repetitions.

Hey, no one ever said parenthood was easy.

I think he’s catching on to the whole empathy thing. What a sweet little guy he is!

I DIED A LITTLE INSIDE.

Because it completely breaks my heart to discipline my son and see those tears splashing down his cheeks. But you know what? It’s not about me. It’s about what’s best for Nathan. And it is absolutely NOT in his best interest for me to be self-centered, refusing to discipline him because disciplining him makes me feel bad, while it harms him in the long run by turning him into an entitled, self-absorbed, spoiled, bratty adult.

There are way too may of those in the world today, you guys feel me?

Children are a blank piece of paper. We, as the parents, write on that paper who our children are going to become as adults. I want Nathan to understand that there are consequences for everything that he does. Some of those consequences are good. Others are bad. And as much as it breaks my heart to discipline him and see those glistening tears cascading down his little cheeks, I know that it has to be done.

But you know what? He is one happy kid. Seriously. He knows he’s loved, because we set limits with him. He needs that security, and he is thriving. And, if I do say so myself, although he has his typical toddler fits, I have a wonderful, precious, sweet, kind, and loving child who I love more than life itself.

But. Let me tell you, the office visit was WORSE than the last time I took him when he was sick. Nathan was quite angry and rather indignant that we dared to put him through such an ordeal. And when it was time to be weighed, all hell broke loose. Again. Paul had to stand on the scale with Nathan, and the whole time, Nathan was screaming and had his little toes curled around Paul’s jacket looking quite a bit like a crazy little tree frog.

And then when the doctor came in, Nathan REMEMBERED HIM. And he started crying while frantically attempting to clamor up Paul’s torso. The doctor, trying to alleviate Nathan’s anxiety, chuckled and stepped out of the room. He poked his head in and made silly faces, but Nathan can see straight through any distraction techniques. It hardly ever works with that kid.

So the doctor came into the room and tried other techniques with Nathan… making funny noises, showing Nathan his phone. But it was all to no avail. Nathan was not about to forget about why he was so angry.

“So which one of you was the stubborn child when you were little?” the doctor asked us through Nathan’s brain-piercing screeches as he checked Nathan’s ears.

“We both were,” we replied.

“Oh,” said the doctor. “So Nathan’s got a double-dose of stubbornness in the gene pool. You guys have a long road ahead of you!”

No kidding.

And we’re not even going to talk about how bad it was when they had to prick his little finger. I’m sure you can hear his wails in your head right now as you read this…

But even with Nathan being so darn stubborn, he’s still so sweet and precious. He’s my little Cuddle Bug; he loves nothing more than to curl up with me and give me kisses and hugs. It’s definitely hard raising someone so strong-willed, but Paul and I are the perfect parents for the job. We’re smart, resourceful, and quick to think outside the box.

Besides, the Terrible Two’s don’t last forever!

I understand why Nathan acted that way- he was hurting. His back molars are coming in and he just doesn’t feel well. And he just wanted Mama there to fix it. Unfortunately, we couldn’t just go back and get him (we were in the middle of dinner when we got the news, plus we didn’t want to set a precedent encouraging Nathan to throw tantrums and cry until Mom and Dad finally show up to get him.) Needless to say, he was quite happy to be back home although he remained fussy the entire weekend.

 And then? To top it off, he’s sick today. He woke up with a runny/stuffy nose, cough, and congestion. A lady at my Monday bible study texted me and told me that she and another mom who attends the study wouldn’t be able to make it because they’re kids are sick, too… with the same symptoms Nathan has. I’m just glad they don’t take their kids to church sick, unlike SOME PEOPLE. I hate that. It’s so rude to take your sick kid to church, spreading their Sick Germs to other unsuspecting children and parents just so YOU can have a break. It’s selfish. Because your sick kid gets my kid sick, and then I get sick, and then Paul gets sick. And then I feel like hunting down the parent whose kid got mine sick and coughing my germ-filled mucus all over his or her face. I know, that’s not nice for me to say, but I am not a happy camper when I get sick. I mean, I go out of my way to keep Nathan healthy. I always sanitize the table, high chair, etc. when we go out to eat. I use one of those shopping cart covers when I go shopping. I wash my hands constantly after I’ve been in public. So the only place he’s in contact with sick germs is, of all places, church. Now, I totally understand that someone can be contagious before they show symptoms, and I don’t fault them because they don’t know. I’m referring to people who take their ACTIVELY sick kid to church. It just ruffles my feathers in such a way that I get all burning and itchy inside.

Sooooo, on top of ALL THAT, I also did something to my hand. I accidentally flung it against my car door when I was trying to get out and at first I thought I broke it. I couldn’t make a fist or move my middle finger the whole weekend. It’s feeling better today, just mostly stiff and I can’t exert any pressure with it. And oh, it’s incredibly painful to change Nathan’s poopie diapers because Nathan doesn’t like his diapers to be changed and he fights it, so it really puts a strain on my hand.

So anyway, enough of my moaning and groaning. HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY, my invisible interwebz friends! Hope you all have a great day and don’t eat too much chocolate. Oh wait, what am I saying?? INDULGE!

A moment of unhappiness when he got tired of my lame attempts to keep him smiling

But after I gave him some kisses and made funny faces, and he was smiling again!