Thursday, April 25, 2013

Append a WHAT?

Halfway through a meeting yesterday I got a call from the school.

I really need to change the primary contact for them to the FATHER of these hooligans.  My heart drops whenever I see that number.  I don't know why.  I think I was ruined the morning they called to say Esten busted his arm on the playground before school even started.  Maybe it's because I'm afraid of their first trip to the principal's office...that I'll become THAT mom with the problem kids.

Yet, so far all the grownups seem to think these two are angels.

It was the second call from the school this week, the first one on Tuesday morning stopped my heart.  After answering I realized it was the librarian.

MOTHER-OF-PEARL.  Am I going to have to spend the next 4 days tearing up the house looking for a lost library book again?

No.  Turns out Esten was selected as Character Kid from his class for this month - Cooperation is the trait they're focusing on for now.

C.O.O.P.E.R.A.T.I.O.N.  From the kid who can't take his eyeballs off his Kindle Fire long enough for me to tell him to put his dirty socks in the laundry.

Anyway, they ask that the parents (or SOMEONE who gives a hoot about the kid) show up at the assembly on Friday when the selected kids are revealed.  We've gone through this a couple of times, and my kids have YET to figure out when they see me while skip-walking into the gym and settling down all criss-cross-applesauce that I'm there for a reason other than I must be so bored with my life that I hang out at school assemblies.

But I digress....THIS call yesterday was not about that.  THIS call was scratchy and rattly, and I could hear my kidlet on the other end asking the secretary whether he should listen for someone to answer or when he should start talking.  My kids don't talk on the phone routinely....so they're telephonically paralyzed when they have to.  I said HELLO louder and louder until he responded.

"Hi my name is Esten and I need someone to come pick me up my stomach hurts."

"Hi Esten, this is your MOTHER and I will tell DAD to come get you."

...he hangs up on me.

I feverishly dial and text and silently cuss his dad, who's not responding.  When I finally got him on the line he headed down to handle the crisis.  He said when he got there that he watched Esten go into the bathroom but not come out...he went in after him and found him sprawled on the floor.  He felt like throwing up all day (but didn't until much later last night).

After a lot of moaning and groaning and me questioning and poking and prodding him, I realized his complaints of right sided belly pain MIGHT be his appendix, and I caved to the reality that he probably shouldn't wait until today to be checked out.  So I schlepped him to the hospital thinking Minor Care could handle it, but they elected to put him in the ER instead.  Behind about 12 other people.  In the hallway.  After a room opened up we waited.  And waited.  And waited.  And this is not the part where I'm complaining about THAT because I realize a lot of people were a LOT sicker than him, and at one point I'm sure I heard a helicopter.  I began to wish they had him on a bed for larger people so I could crawl in there and snuggle him.  Not so much for his ease of mind as for my exhaustion.

As the minutes (and then hours) ticked by, I learned quite a bit in that tiny room from that tiny being:

  1. Not all Vikings had horns.
  2. Christopher Columbus was arrested by a gang of Vikings.
  3. It is undetermined whether Christopher Columbus was arrested by horny Vikings.
  4. You shouldn't eat too much junk food because if you get too hyper you can pass out and when you wake up you can have amnesia.
  5. If the only game you have on your phone is Angry Birds, that is lame.
  6. An 8 year old boy can pee in a urine sample cup being held by his mother with an alarming degree of accuracy compared to the war-zone spray around the toilet at home, but only until that boy gets the giggles about the fact that he's peeing in a cup being held by his mother.  Then all Hell breaks loose.
  7. No matter how much soap you use to wash your hands after being peed on by an 8 year old kid, it NEVER seems like enough.
  8. A hospital-issued barf bag is the same length as the distance between the tips of an 8 year old boy's fingers and his "elbow crotch".  It is speculated that they may be useful to people in an eating competition because they seem designed to hold a LOT.
  9. Something just outside the room makes the exact same noises as something on Dad's belt when he comes home for dinner on his work days.  Like "freaky-same".  Like people talking on a walkie-talkie.
  10. Having a curtain in the room seems unnecessary to someone who questions why on earth anyone would ever be naked in the ER.
  11. The proposed solution to possible appendicitis is a Big Mac.
  12. A plan was hatched to construct a vending machine out of Legos that only accepts fifty or hundred dollar bills, and then says "sorry, out of change".
Alas, I'm THAT mom that sent his fanny to school this morning and emailed his teacher the scoop.  So today I will try to muck through and hopefully not get another call.  I'd love to spend some additional quality time with the kid, just not in that setting again.