Week in Review

Nothing major occurred last week. But here's the "low down:"

• Still looking for a job, nothing has surfaced yet
  
• Took a midterm for one of my classes; got a 91 (A)
• Had an accident in the parking lot of the grocery store... totally my fault.
• Ate an entire 3 boxes of girl scout cookies by myself, in two days.
  
• Eating the last row of cookies from the last box (box #4) as I type
  

This week started out with a SCREAM as the stitches were removed from lil man's ear today.
This time we were in the hospital for several hours (not because of his pain/screaming but because the pediatric ward was completely full). When we finally were taken to the back, we waited an additional 30 minutes to be seen. While we were waiting, I decided to teach lil man sign language. We started with the letters and then signed a few easy words like eye, foot, arm, ten, and his name. I was quite impressed as he caught on quickly. One of the nursing assistants came into the "room" (if you've ever been to the emergency room, you know that it's not really a room) and tried to prepare lil man for the removal. "It's not going to hurt," she says. "If you be really still, it won't hurt and it will only take a few minutes. " Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiighhhhht.... two problems with that: 1) His ear was healing and scabs were forming over the stitches... NICE, right? and 2). HE IS 5!!!!! He has no idea what "this won't hurt" really means. EVERYTHING hurts to him! Because HE'S 5?!?!?

Sooooo... yeah.... He screeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeamed bloody murder throughout the procedure. Both the nurse assistant, who had to be called back to our "room," and I had to hold him down while the Physician Assistant painstakingly cut out the 5 stitches. That was the longest stitch removal procedure ever! Even The Physician Assistant said so. What should have probably taken 5-10 minutes ended up taking 35 minutes!!! Once the PA was done, lil man crawled into my arms and just cried. The guy next to us calls out "well at least you don't have to worry about his lungs!" I laughed and apologized to him because lil man was quite loud. I'm sure the folks in the waiting room heard him scream. The nurse assistant of course bribed him with a Popsicle because, well, she said this wasn't going to hurt and it did. He asked for green; she didn't have green so she asked if she could bring him orange. He agreed and quietly wept while he waited for the popsicle.

All in all, I think it was a good experience for him and for me. He was able to see how much pain he could really take (none) and was able to determine that he did not ever want to go back to the hospital again. As for me, I learned that I can take anything that this boy throws at me... even a trip (or two) to the emergency room; I'm stronger than I thought. I suppose love for your child will do that to ya... either that or the thousands of grams of sugar from the girl scout cookies I consumed over the weekend...

yeah, bring on more son...errr... but don't forget the cookies... just in case it was indeed the sugar.