Noodle brought his Thanksgiving art project home from school today. Every student in his class made one by coloring a picture of a turkey, adding construction paper feathers and writing things for which they are thankful on the feathers. He’s pretty proud of it.
I guess I should be grateful that I made the cut because he told me he was “most grateful for barbecue chips”, a topic important enough that it got a full 50% of the thankfulness-feather real estate. And, of course, Christmas, which I can’t even fault him for. Besides, shopping for Noodle just got a whoooooole lot cheaper. I was thinking skateboard, but heck. Looks like all I need is a Costco run for one of those Saint Bernard-sized bags of BBQ Lays and the boy is good. to. go.
The real reason I’m grateful to have made the cut is that my attitude as of late is fairly… Hmm. What’s the word? Oh yeah. The word is BAD. My attitude has sucked. I’m whiny and feeling sorry for myself on a fairly large scale. I’ve started to irritate even myself, so I’m sure the rest of my family is ready to post me in the FREE section on Craigslist.
The truth is that I’ve spent two years in doctors offices with Pook and this weird quasi-insurance fiasco has meant virtually zero appointments in November. I’ve had lots of other things to do but, deep down, it feels like I’m not doing a very good job for my girl. This feeling was compounded by Pook ending up in the ER on Saturday night with a 104 fever and horrible O2 sats. She’s got a nasty respiratory virus and last night, we had to break out the feeding tube to make sure she stayed hydrated. I sat and cried as we did it because it felt like both a monumental leap backwards (she’s not needed it for almost six months) and another sign of my failure to keep Pook on the right path.
This is just me, being gut-level honest. I get that these emotions aren’t logical, hence the reason they’re emotions and not facts. I know in my head that none of this is my fault. But the nagging whispers of my heart tell me otherwise and drag me down into the muck. I’m once again battling my terror of losing my sweet girl, even though that’s a pretty ridiculous thing to fear from a respiratory infection. I know that, I really do. But every time I’ve used Pook’s feeding tube (both last night and three more times today) I have had a solid cry afterwards. It feels so unfair that our sweet girl has such a tall hill to climb, a feeling only compounded by the fact that we’ve already climbed this particular hill and I thought we’d left it behind us forever.
All of which to say: I probably didn’t deserve a thankfulness feather because I’ve been a big whiny, anxious, overemotional turd. Noodle’s project got me to thinking though. What can I find to be grateful for in all of this? Surely there are silver linings.
I am grateful that Pook has a feeding tube, because it means we aren’t spending this week in the hospital on IV fluids. I am grateful that my son loves me enough to forgive my crapitude and give me a spot on his list of thankfulness. I am grateful that my mama taught me to make the world’s very best turkey sandwiches, which I’ve eaten for lunch for 4 days running. I am thankful that Melissa works so hard to ensure I can stay home with our kids. And I am profoundly grateful that Pook is still here and still as feisty as ever. There aren’t enough words to thank God for my Pook.
I’m gonna get my crap together and quit whining, I promise. Things might not be easy but they’re certainly not boring. I think it’s time to snuggle a certain Noodle. Pretty sure I can bribe him into watching a Christmas movie if I give him some barbecue chips. And, as far as I’m concerned, that is a win-win situation.
My Five Ring Circus 