now fortified with impotent fury!risperdal

Quietness around Impotent Fury does not equal nothing going on, oh no. We split up, the Lad to the wilds of the west for a scintillating professional conference, whilst I decamped north with the snarklet to do the rounds of relatives interspersed with some holy shit good eats (I have a post I need to do- a tale of 3 dinners, including dinner at Graham Elliot and the first Farm Table dinner at Green Dirt Farms.) But all of that was preparatory to our big summer event this year.

Yes, yes Sean is sans tonsils now, thank you for asking. And why yes, yes I would appreciate a ginger margarita as big as my ever lovin head, aren’t you a dear.

Wednesday was D-day, and all of the honest talks, and lead up, and experiments with Sean safe popsicle flavors flew out the window when the wee man was confronted with the harsh medical reality of the pre-op area. In a word, he wigginsed. Dad summoned all of his parental mojo while I frenziedly signed all manners of paperwork attesting why yes, yes he really is allergic to all of that crap and yes we are aware that anasthesia could turn him into a goat or worse yet a dead goat or god forbid a dead goat registered as a Republican. Meanwhile, the small man wailed he did not want his tonsils out, “Please and thank you!”

The Ana strode up, surveyed the scene manfully, and smiled- smiled the smile of a man confident in his arsenal of Drugs That Make You Really Not Care. “How much does he weigh? 50 lbs? That’s 23, so we’ll just push him 12 of versed! That’ll calm him down!” he said airily to the nurse. At which point I looked at him and said in a tone somewhere between wicked and ‘please don’t make me rip your head off isn’t versed a little MUCH for the situation of a wigged out child?’ “Does it have dye in it? In which case, oh no you won’t.”

Have you ever seen a doctor look like a child at the circus who’s just spilled his popcorn and his balloon’s flown off at the same moment? I have now. “Oh.” He sighed, and slumped off to redo his entire medical plan. You know, because it’s not like we hadn’t alerted them beforehand about this little issue. 15 minutes later, when Sean was still huddled on the floor against the wall like Gollum, protesting feebly that “No I really really don’t want my tonsils out”, the nurse ana strode over with HIS kit, and chirped, “Versed?” and the entire chorus of nurses and me barked, “No dye!” He slumped off like a whipped puppy.

So it’s been fun. All manner of fun. Sean did in fact inherit both his father’s and my mother’s poor reactions to ana, and so he came out of it both wailing and thrashingkickinglogrollinggeenurseI’msosorryhekickedyouintheforehead. Poor Lad got the brunt of it, because Sean wanted to curl up on him (though, once he had shaken off the bulk of the ana, the nurse asked him if he wanted to lie on mom in the big medical recliner. “No.” he said, and then a beat later added, “I still love you mom.” Unspoken was the ‘despite you doing this to MEEEEEEEE’) for a good solid 3 hours, and I think he’s still regaining feeling in his extremities. He is pretty much refusing to eat or drink except for brief, 45 minute long periods in the evenings when he eats all manner of shit the books and doctors tell you a child recuperating from this won’t eat (blue cheese! salty french fries! bbq pork!). He has asked that when he can swallow nicely again can we have steak. He sounds like the horrible combination of Minnie Mouse with a bad sinus infection, Deputy Dog, and an Ewok.

But by far the worst of it was the day after. The evening of, he was remarkably fine- ate ice cream, ate popsicles, drank. But as the last of the goooood meds cleared his system overnight, and the swelling set in, that came to a halt. The Lad not only had to work, he had a business dinner Thurs, so I was truly flying solo. It was horrible. It was requiring every whit of parenting skill I had. And we had to go out at 4:45 to get the CSA pickup for the week. In desperation, I deployed The Bakugan Vol 2 dvd I’d bought for later in the week (Miss Tammy got him Bakugans for his birthday, as they involve MATH. Thanks, Tammy, thanks SO MUCH. FIRST HIT’S FREE, INNIT! DO YOU REALIZE THERE ARE LIKE 200 OF THESE THINGS?).

“Mom?” Sean asked in his Tiny Sad Voice as he watched.
“Yeah babe?”
“Can we get some bakugan?”
“Honey, we’re not going anywhere other than to get the CSA pickup.”
“But with my money. Can I buy some Bakugan?”
“Um. I don’t know how much they are. And sweetie you really need to take it easy.”

Sean was quiet a minute, then trudged upstairs. He returned with a fistful of crumpled bills. “How many can I get with this?” he asked. “It’s 7. From the tooth fairy and grandma and grandpa.” He dropped some quarters. “And 75.” Even I, hardass that I am, was not about to make a less than 48 hours post op child buy his own damn toys. “I’ll look into how much they cost.” I said, and then I had a brainwave as I bundled him into the car for the CSA run. “You finish that cup of water, honey, and we’ll stop at Target SUPER QUICK and get you a bakugan.” “But how much do they cost,” he asked again in TSV. “I don’t know if I have enough.” “Don’t worry about it, sweetie.” I said, driving off, confident as could be. I had a happy child, who was drinking finally, he’d get a toy that would keep him occupied, this was the BEST PLAN EVAR.

Until I heard the noise. A strange, grinding, heaving noise.
The noise of splashing.
And then the crying. “Oh honey! Don’t cry! I bet the meds made your tummy unhappy!” I said, flinging kleenex back to him futilely, grabbing rhino out of the blast radius. “I’m not crying because I threw up!” Sean sobbed.

“I am crying because I am sad we can’t go to Target now!”

So if you were the nice, clean, pulled together suburban mom, with the 3 blonde children immaculately garbed, standing in the aisle with the transformers and the bakugan, I do apologize. And if you are wondering why my child sounded like a pathetic squeaky toy as he asked again and again if he had enough money for the bakugan I was blindly flinging into the cart and I was telling him I was not making him spend his tooth fairy money not to worry about it, and moreover why he smelled faintly like a sewage treatment plant, or moreover why he was wearing shorts so old and outgrown it looked like a Hotpants Ode To Farrah (which I had managed to find at the bottom of the Emergency Bag Of Stuff), please, let your imagination continue to run free. I assure you whatever Worst Mother of the Year Award you’ve dreamt up in your mind can’t begin to hold a candle to the reality of the fact that I have been grinding dye-free codeine pills with a mortar and pestle and making tinctures of them with vanilla coffee-flavouring syrup and administering it to my child like some sort of old-fashioned laudnum-pushing druggist. Nor for the fact that he feebly thanks me for it every time I drug him like an angry charging rhino.

In what is rapidly becoming a very fun annual tradition, we did Sean’s photos with Anne Dillon, a professional photographer here (who is also, conveniently, the mother of one of Sean’s best pals). What could top last year’s festival of tornado sirens and a torrent of rain, wind, and hail a mere 20 min into the session?

How about, 90 degree weather and bringing her son, B, along for the ride as we hit a farmer’s market, alleyways in downtown KC, and a certain little store in the crossroads?

If you need photography and you’re in the KC area, I strongly suggest you hook up with Anne. She’s a damn rockstar, and I could write a squintillion words and it could not possibly come close to capturing Sean’s essence the way she has. (And hey. If you have need of a lovely home in a suburb of KC, she’s selling hers. Just saying.)

Silliness holds a very high rank in our household. The other night, as Sean wriggled past his father after dinner, the Lad looped out an arm and snagged him, commencing to snuggle up and snore. So began the usual rondeau of “Daaaaad! I am not a sleepy toy!” This time, however, the Lad decided to turn it into a game of logic and framing an argument, in light of a kid’s show we’ve been watching. How, he inquired, do you know you are not a sleepy kid? What are the qualities of a sleepykid that you do not have? For some unknown reason, I snagged up the nearest available actual sleepy toy- Rhino- and cradled him like a baby. This instantly distracted Sean from his dad.

“Rhino! I want Rhino!”
“Nope!” I declared, and then I have no idea why the next thing popped out of my mouth, but it did. “I have a baby, but you are clearly not the baby, since you are too big and too old. Ergo, this must be my baby.”

Sean was gobsmacked. Sean had no comeback. Sean, thusly denied Rhino, stomped his feet, folded his arms, and went and faced the corner in a pout. “Sean,” his Dad pointed out. “Convince mom she’s wrong. Persuade her. Put together an argument. Why can that not be a baby, and why is it rhino?”
Sean eyeballed me, and eyeballed Rhino. “Moooooom. He’s purple! Babies aren’t PURPLE.”
“A baby in a purple snowsuit would be!”
Sean blinked. I petted rhino’s fur.
“He’s FURRY. Babies aren’t FURRY.”
“A baby in a furry purple snowsuit would be.” I riposted. As I kept petting Rhino, I realized I had painted myself into a corner. Purple, furry, and with a green horn are his defining characteristics. How the hell was I going to argue the green horn point? A baby with a green carrot taped to its head wearing a fuzzy purple snowsuit?
“MOM.”
“Yes?” I said, secure in the knowledge that I had come up with a ridiculous, silly argument about the next reason Sean would come up with that it was not a baby, it was in fact Rhino.
“Babies have privates and Rhino does not.”

Sexless as a Ken doll, Rhino was quietly and quickly handed back.

“Shit, that’s the doorbell, I’ll be right back-” I told the person I was talking with. The postman stood on the stoop, a certified letter in his hands. Who the hell is sending us certified mail? I thought, as he explained his pen was dying but I still needed to sign. As soon as I saw the return address, I started to shake, my brain going blank and numb, though the comedy gold of his pen dying, then my pen dying, then trying to find another pen so I could sign and get him the hell off the stoop did not escape me. One quick call to the lad and he told me to open the letter from the university chancellor.

“Congratulations!” it began.

The lad started college, a clean shaven, enthusiastic young man of 18, intent on becoming a scientist and a professor. 18 years later, he isn’t clean shaven and he’s probably a lot more snarky but his enthusiasm for pure science has not dimmed one iota, and he has been awarded tenure and promoted to the rank of associate professor. Half his life has lead up to this moment, this day. Talk about being in the moment. 50% of your time on earth gunning for something.

Congratulations my love. It has been my honor, privilege, and no small source of the silver in my hair to be along for 41.6% (or, if you wish to run the percentages as to how much of the Ph.D. and tenure grind I’ve been here for, 77.8%). You have a lifetime of discoveries before you now.

Love,
Wench

Is there anything you’d like our medical staff to be aware of or keep in mind in our treatment of you?

Yes. Please refrain from being psychotic child-terrorizing hosebeasts, kthnxbai.

It is Strep. Trust me, it’s strep. It’s strep that’s responding beeeeautifully to the antibiotics I am on, but I am now utterly voiceless. Yes, we’ve had the descent through the phases of sexy voice loss:

Yesterday
8:30 am. Sound vaguely like Jessica Rabbit.
10:00 am. Sound entirely like Jessica Rabbit, despite not having that much junk in my trunk and not swanning about the house in a strapless sequin gown, and in spite of every other word out of my mouth being a whine about my throat hurting.
12:00 pm. We enter the Carly Simon Cocaine Binge years.
2:00 pm. While on phone with doc’s office again, nurse notes I’m sounding like Bacall. “Only one whiskey into the afternoon, I hope?” I reply. “And a pack of cigs,” she notes darkly. Crap.
4:00 pm. I sound like a goddamn female Draenei death knight on Warcraft. I am on the phone with a colleague talking creative and I say, when I’m bored with the conversation, “We are done here.” Thank god he gets the joke.
6:15 pm. Choke down dinner, but now sound like Bacall after a smoke and boozefest with Bogey.
7:15 pm. All possibly remotely sexy voice is gone, as I now sound like the demon lovechild offspring of Bjork after a concert and Selma from the Simpsons.
8:00 pm. Say something on vent on the game. Have a compadre note in a charmingly pitying tone, “Ooooooooh! Your voice!”
8:01 pm. Consider giving up and making a female draenei death knight so I can amuse myself walking around saying, “Yes?!” “Make it quick.” and “Suffer well.”
9:03 pm. Noogie in whisper the guildie who makes fun of me privately for not being able to explain the fight in my usual stewardess emergency procedure voice.
10:20 pm. Have to say does anyone need anything else or can I go faceplant now? Why? Because no one can HEAR ME.
10:21 pm. Faceplant, only to have dreams of recording voiceovers.

It was pink cards and little kid snuggles, and gift cards to spoil me rotten. It was time to do what I want, and a kid on his best behavior, and dinner beautifully made and lovingly served. And then it was a tender, special moment together as we watched a short film.

Because we are clearly not the only totally screwed in the head people.

A few weeks ago, Sean had his 6 year well child checkup. The wee bairn has, after being Gojira, Smasher Of Block Cities, become an astonishingly thin child. We’d managed to get him up over the 30th percentile on weight several months back for the first time since he was a toddler (an event so auspicious and momentous his regular nurse, upon seeing his chart, called to congratulate us). I should have known something was up at the last appointment when, upon taking his weight, the nurse frowned and murmured, “Oh my.” And then she perkily brightened up and shooed us down the hall with false cheer.

It turns out that we really do need to stop stretching our child upon the rack at night, because he’s up over the 90th percentile in height and has crashed down to the 22nd or so percentile on weight, causing his doctor great concern that he simply won’t have the energy and reserves to support his skyrocketing growth rate. The med student suggested gravely that the failure to thrive (I nearly slapped her) was due to insufficient food intake, which prompted his pediatrician to rumble a rich, knowing laugh- before airily informing her student to ‘take a 3 day food history from mom, I’ll be back in a few’, and she sauntered out to pound some coffee and write some orders. The student got a hand cramp and needed two notepads.

The upshot was that the pediatrician gave us instructions in front of Sean, chiefly, “Double desserts, bedtime snack, cheese and butter on everything, just pack the calories in wherever you can. Eat when and where he wants, snack as much as possible, it’s not like he won’t eat meals if he snacks. Oh, and all the French fries he wants.” Sean asked her to repeat that bit about double desserts and fries. A couple of times. Just to be sure, you know. And so began operation strasbourg goose, as we’ve dubbed it. I never anticipated the phrase, “No you can’t have bedtime snack until you have two more bites of cake” coming out of my mouth. Chocolate protein powder and shakes and smoothies. Chunks of cheese in the car. Bowls of cashews. Strawberries with dip. Any of which he is welcome to eat while watching his new second favorite show, the “Penguins of Madagascar”, which I realize is wholly devoid of educational content in marked contrast to our standing policy on television for the kid, except it is teaching him snarky paranoia and he’ll never be able to watch a serious spy movie without being all ‘wait, people mean this to be serious?’ and laughing at Tom Clancy as well as conspiracy theorists masquerading as America’s finest news source and really, that’s educational in my book. There are a few pieces of dialog that never fail to crack me and the Lad up, one of them being Skipper going on about ‘defcon red’. Otter asks, “What’s Defcon Red?” “Pray,” Skipper says soberly, “That you never find out, sister.”

But the other big thing to come out of the well child checkup was that boy howdy, them tonsils, they need to go. This was an issue raised 3 years ago, but all and sundry specialists involved in his apraxia care at that point agreed that we needed to wait- to do nothing that would change the shape of his throat while they were avidly trying to rewire his deeelicious squishy brain. So off we went this morning to the head and neck pediatric surgery specialist courtesy of a referral. First there was the monster wait in the boring exam room with nothing to do, because I was a giant dork and left the Bag of Tricks at home (what do you want, I was still caffeinating). And then the doctor came in, and I was brutally reminded how good Sean’s pediatrician’s bedside manner is- much less the laundry list of specialists we’ve seen over his short life, because this guy had all the talent with children of, say, Freddy Krueger, or perhaps Jason. He swiftly examined Sean, and then began to speak, which is when it all went south, because there was no code talking, there was no using words a child might not know, and when in fact my normally chirpy happy boy was fully balled up and wailing in terror in my lap, this guy had the temerity to say “Now I believe in being honest with kids.” Really dude? That’s great, because while I agree in theory with you I believe in practice in locking my now completely out of the blue freaked out kid in YOUR OFFICE and letting YOU deal with this. And in fact, when my sobbing child manages to pull it together and say ‘I want to ask you a question’ and you say sure, the answer to, ‘Will it hurt’ is ‘Yes but I am going to prescribe you very good medicine that will help you feel better’ and not ‘Yes, a lot, for about a week.’ And lastly, when you tell me repeatedly that it was the wrong call to not have them removed 3 years ago and that Sean may well need speech therapy again, don’t be surprised when I snap at you that despite your thinking he has articulation disorders, we get a regular ‘tune up’ from the ACTUAL EXPERTS IN SPEECH THERAPY and he continues to get the all clear, and yes it will take him a bit to refigure out this speech thing but scare and guilt tactics on mom will really just make me rip your head off and pour the nearest available caustic substance down your flapping, exposed trachea. PS, I’m so glad that when I whipped out my ’small words in a deathly calm tone’ voice on you, after you pompously told me ‘these kids’ are ‘teeny’ because they ‘don’t eat’ and Sean protested ‘I’m a good eater’ and you replied patronizingly, “I’m sure your mom and dad tell you that”, you actually backed down, because you were about to find me going, getting takeout, and sitting Sean in the middle of your file-bedecked desk and having him go to town on the messiest thing I could find at 9 in the goddamn morning. Sir, I realize you are the absolute A-1 best doc in the entire metro area for this, but you’re also the absolute A-1 biggest Asshole, MD in the area. Also, are you in cahoots with Toys-r-us? Because your ‘oh no, don’t load up on ice cream, some kids are cold sensitive, wait until you know what works for him’ was wise and welcome advice, but the follow up of ‘but do you know what you do get lots of, Sean? PRESENTS!’ was just frosting on the shitcake you’d so happily just served up.

So after our oh-so-pleasant experience and at somewhere around a Defcon 2 child unhappiness status, we were handed off to the tender loving care of his nurse who handles his scheduling and goes over all the ins and outs of pre-op and post-op and the fact that I will be IN HELL for a week. She, having not heard the food thing, started in on how Sean will be eating so! much! better! after this, and Sean- testy about the multiple insults to his claim to Takeru Kobayashi’s throne- told her what he ate last night. Her tune changed, and she spent a great deal of time telling me tips and tricks to get him to eat and drink enough after surgery to keep things from hurting so badly. And then- even after the horrible consult with the doctor, the panicked child, the bone-chilling thought of Sean being out of summer camp and home with me for an entire week, came the worst line of the morning.

“Be prepared for him to lose 10% of his body weight the first week.”

Send help. Wrapped around lard.

I just had the pleasure of being out of town on business for a whomping 5 days. Back in a city, back in an urban area. Back where museums are a dime-a-dozen, where I could eat at the best new restaurant in the country according to the James Beard Foundation. Back where I turned my engagement ring inside as I strode from one cocktail party to another in the encroaching dark of night, along mostly unfamiliar streets. I slipped on the persona which usually hangs in the closet, the chatty, sparkling schmoozy friendly outgoing woman in heels and Eileen Fisher, as opposed to the cranky, sarcastic misanthrope in old navy jeans, a shirt, and flip flops if shoes are a must. I looked up and saw the sky pierced by glistening towers and history. I breathed in and choked on the stench of buses. I watched people avoid one another.

Yesterday I sunk myself back into the mire of motherhood minutiae with a grateful sigh. I meandered the aisles of the grocery store, grabbed mother’s day cards and a present for this weekend’s birthday party at Target. I ran 1001 errands, and picked up school registration materials, paid the mortgage, filled out doctor’s forms for the ENT. I looked up at the sky and saw nothing but endlessness. Endless blue, endless space, endless air. I breathed deep, and my lungs did not burn and my breath did not sputter.

About this time 6 years ago, I sat in a hospital bed, awkwardly holding the tiny bundle that was you with one arm while I shoveled food from 40 Sardines into my mouth, and pounded a diet coke with near unholy glee. Now I am sitting here on the couch, watching you play and critique you way through a brand new Wii game. Your father and I shared a bottle of sake at dinner tonight, flanking you, and casting marveling and somewhat stunned glances at one another. Has it really been six years? And have we really some how managed to raise you to be this cool kid?

6 and a half years ago, I cried all over your father. And I admit that the reason (that day) I cried all over him was the doctor told us you would be a boy. But I wanted a giiiiiirl! I wailed. I would know how to raise a giiiiiirl!. Now, you and I both know, now, how very silly that was. Here’s a good lesson for life, Sean. That silliness was thanks to hormones. But don’t ever write off a woman’s emotional outbursts to hormones. You will find yourself turned into a smoking red smear on the sidewalk. Always have a reserve supply of chocolate for such occasions, and you’ll be fine. Trust me on this. But at the time, I was convinced I would be absolutely ill-prepared for a boy. You’ll be all into trains! And legos! And robots! I wailed. You’ll be his favorite cause you know how to do guy stuff! Your dad assured me there would be plenty of ‘non-guy’ stuff for me to handle. Let me say, Sean, that the day last fall when you corrected your father on what kind of play the Steelers were running reduced me to a sniffly mass, not only because you totally pwned him but because I’d taught you that and I’m just that petty.

The fact of the matter is, kiddo, your dad and I are pretty much winging it when it comes to child rearing, and it’s likely more testament to your inherently sweet, kind, good, funny nature than any especial skill of ours. Trust me, you are boy- alllllll boy- and there are many things you do (your unholy hatred of us suggesting you bathe being one of them) which baffle me but which your father thinks are perfectly normal. And you appear to have taken the Kid Guidebook and hucked it out the window. You never went through a completely obsessive gifted phase regarding dinosaurs; I have not had to memorize the scientific nomenclatures of dozens of extinct beasts. Your social skills are far superior to mine. You clamp your hands over your ears and shriek, “WITH WORDS, MOM, MUSIC WITH WORDS” if I happen to flip to NPR (no Julliard for you, dear boy) on the way to school, and when you say that you don’t mean ’some kid’s album’, you likely mean Rage Against The Machine, Snow Patrol, Death Cab for Cutie, PJ Harvey, or Depeche Mode. You actually turned to Beatrice, as she sang “Single Ladies (put a ring on it)”, and said with dead calm, “Do you know about the 19th amendment?” (This is what we get for introducing you to School House Rock). The same day, when I tried to dissuade you from a not-really-okay-for-kid’s movie by using my old standby of “You wouldn’t like it, there’s lots of a boy kissing a girl” which has reliably, for over half your life in fact, produced a great wailing and gnashing of teeth and yelps of revolted noises and flailing of limbs, you said quite evenly, “Mom. I like kissing.”

That day was today, kiddo. Which means today is also the day that I officially went grey. Let me remind you that you are not officially a man for another 7 years. Deal with it.

We bought you the Bob Dylan illustrated “Forever Young” a few weeks back, since it’s the song we used in your naming ceremony. You and I hauled it out the other day, and you asked me intently what everything meant. What does it mean to be righteous? What does it mean to be true? No one challenges me like you do, kid, and I mean that as both compliment and despairing plea. This morning in the car on the way to school you asked me how much we’d raised for charity with your birthday party and asking people to donate. “Over $200, kiddo.”

“Mom?”
“Yeah?”
“I guess I’m doing pretty good on that song then.”
“What song?”
And then you started to sing Bob Dylan.

Happy birthday to my amazing, incredible 6 year old.