big smack attack
from december 6 2001, when magnificent charles’ paternity leave ended and he had to head back to work to september 2004, when my tiny little sebastian headed off on the school bus (at 2.5 years!) to work/school, often when sebastian and i were alone, i kept up a ridiculous monologue with my little butter bean boy.
if i was setting up for a dinner party, i would have him strapped to my chest and i would chat with him about the proper way to hold your soup spoon. or what to do with mint sprigs that accompany sorbet. how to sober up someone who is drunk halfway through a six course meal. we had lots of quiet times, young seb and i, and lots of music as well, but the monologue continued. i think in the back of my post partum brain i was certain that one day he would be sharing one of these snippets of information with a friend, and all of a sudden an aged lady from the table next to him would turn around and say, "by goodness! that is a lost art, young man!" and it would be lady astor or someone of that ilk, and she would be so bemused and impressed by this young man that she would leave him several million dollars and he would give me and his father a hefty chunk because we taught him all he knew.
add three kids and helpers into the house and those one on one conversations are a bit rarer. and the fact that sebastian talks back and his response might be, "well mr incredibles’ friend frozone could skate over his soup". he’s not learning the lessons anymore, sadly. shhh…listen carefully, can you hear the millions skating away?
today sebastian was at school and sela and jasper were off at PPA! (exclamation mark necessary). carys was home with me because she had an endocrinology appointment at 10.30. we read books, read to BEBE, discussed why we don’t draw on ourselves, and as i loaded up the bag for our appointment, i found myself discussing with her why we were taking the straw sippy cup instead of the avent sippy cup. good HEAVENS. she was obediently answering yes everytime i paused, and if my eyebrows went up she would change her answer to no. but basically i was monologing the same way i had with sebastian. it was easy, it was fun, it was sweet, at least for me.
i have been to a lot of hospital appointments and i think i can say i have gotten rather blase about them. it has been a while since we received any bad news from the queen mary hospital. i had gotten out of the nicu tango, one step forward two steps back, when it came to my children making progress. which is why today’s appointment was such a smack attack. it was totally unexpected me.
it started before we got into the waiting room. we were walking from the payment centre down the stairs to the clinic and a doctor passed us, and said something like, "she has trouble walking". i thought he was in a hurry and didn’t pay attention, i was more concerned with the grime carys was collecting on her hands from the railing.
that same doctor was the doctor we saw in the exam room. "we meet again" he said suavely.
he left the room and came back with a box of stuff, and started testing carys. giving her blocks and asking her to build similar buildings, pick out a block the same colour as the one he was holding, to identify the picture where the boy was sitting next to the pillow (not on the pillow) and to put the dog underneath the table. when carys apparently failed to do any of these things he sighed.
he asked why the kids havent seen an occupational therapist. i said, "because you are the people who make the appointments." he lifted up the phone and barked into it, then informed me that we have appointments tomorrow.
then i got the talk about how i have to stop seeing my kids as premature. they are now ADJUSTED. and DELAYED. or at least carys is, he doesn’t want to speak for the others. he knows i don’t have time to spend one on one, but i need to read more. ARE YOU KIDDING I READ A LOT TO THESE KIDS! but i liked the guilt, that was nice.
then he decided he had had enough of that, might as well save some reproach for the OT (tomorrow) and became an endocrinologist again. said her muscles were good, bla bla bla, and then just as i was relaxing, half paying attention to what he was saying because i was plotting out how i can get some more one on one reading time with carys and get her talking more, he said
according to these growth charts, your daughter will be very small.
yes, carys is not growing well, friends. she is expected to be between 4’11 and five feet if all goes according to what is happening now. magnificent andi need to be considering if we want to put her on puberty delaying hormones in a few years, like when she is nine.
then it was time to go home.
this doctor was actually a very nice fellow, i kid you not. but what he said wasn’t. i thought we were done this, plus i wasn’t expecting it. i wasn’t wearing my defensive jacket, i wasn’t seeing carys as anything but my delightful little companion who had requested to wear her white church sandals and who had identified my tea as hot.
we’ve had so many steps forward, that a couple of steps back shouldn’t be earth shattering. i just wasn’t prepared. so i am going to do some research tonight to see if stretch racks are available on ebay. or if it is legal in china to have that surgery where they insert bone into your tibia to give you an extra two inches of height. proactive is good.
yuk.
