A Really Real Day

As Nathan gets older, it is fascinating to watch his influence on Emily.  He has introduced her to a whole to realm of things she never considered.  Neither of them wanted the snacks I suggested this afternoon.  They went off to play while I talked to the insurance company for at least an hour.  There was laughter and fun.  Then silence.

Nathan showed Emily the stash of cereal in the closet.  Emily helped Nathan get the bag open.  She goes along with all his ideas, even if they twinge at her conscious.  I let it go, too tired to say or do much beyond listen to the hold music and chop vegetables.  The mess expanded rapidly, with pure glee coming from the two beings.

Nathan nearly pulled an all nighter last night.  Even with tag teaming Andrew and I did not get much sleep with the continuous screaming.  We all drifted off a little after 5:30am.  At 6:15am a well rested girl started her day, which woke us all up.

We had a double doctors appointment for the kids at 8:30am.  I thought it would be efficient to do them both at the same time. It was a bit crazy.  Nathan had a poopy diaper that all the nurses commented on so it couldn’t be ignored. They even handed me a bio hazard bag. I discovered I left the baby wipes at home so we improvised with tissues.  Just when I ran out of my collected stash the nurse walked in. I swallowed a bit of pride and asked for her to hand me more tissues.  She kindly gave me baby wipes.

There were two nurses working with the kids.  One was asking questions while another took vitals.  Both kids wanted me holding them. I ended up split between keeping Nathan from falling off a chair and reaching across the room to hold Emily’s hand, while answering “Rear facing. City water.  Twice a day.  Plenty. etc.”  and listening to Emily’s growing panic about the blood pressure cuff squeezing her arm.

The night before Emily asked if she would be getting shots.  I confidently told her no, only Nathan.  I forgot about the flu shot.

Emily’s big eyes welled up with tears saying, “I don’t want a shot. I said I didn’t want one.  Mom you said I didn’t need a shot today” while I held her on my lap, exposed her leg, and the nurse reached around Nathan, who held on tightly to my legs, to administer the surprise.  “Now it’s Nathan’s turn!” we brightly chorused and Emily narrated, “It’s hurting him, it’s hurting him”. He received five injections.

Nathan is in a glasses phase right now.  Today we spent 15 minutes putting the glasses on, seeing his excited face, then taking the glasses off and handing them to me to put them back on again.  A brilliant cycle.  I can’t help but smile when I see his enthusiasm.  Meanwhile Emily talked about removing something from her bunny’s tongue, making a hospital gown for her, and measuring the bunny.  The instructions for the operation were read expertly from “Carl’s Christmas”.

I’m giggling while writing this.  A sign of total exhaustion for sure.  Someone knocks loudly on our door and Andrew and I both groan in fear of disturbing our totally zonked out kids.  Christmas in a basket.  Could a day end more kindly than that?  A true sign that God remembers us on our really real days too.

Off to bed!