Everything is not a race. Could someone please, please tell this to my boys?
They race to the breakfast table, to the store and to the post office. They race each other, they race me (even when I’m not actually racing them) and they race their toys. On particularly frightening days, they attempt to race through parking lots (my least favorite kind of racing).
Frankly, I’m worn out.
Why can’t they race to see who will be the best behaved, most complimentary to Mom or finish their brocoli first?
At this rate the only thing I’m racing towards is old age.
T.Puzzle gets ready for his letter read throughFull Speed moves into place for his eye exam
The boys had their six month eye check-up and even though it ended up being fairly routine with a good dose of positive news thrown in, I was kind of a mess. As a parent if you have ever experienced a traumatic medical appointment for your child, it never really leaves you. When Full Speed was first diagnosed with vision issues over five years ago, the initial prognosis was bleak. Years of testing, surgeries and follow-up care have thankfully stabilized his vision and his future.
After all this time and all the hard work to get both boys to a place of good vision, I still can’t let go of that first, horrible assessment for Full Speed. The logical place of my brain says to focus on how amazing they are doing but sometimes fear takes over. I hold my breath every time either one of them does a read through of letters as their visual acuity is tested. My whole body tenses as their ophthalmologist peers into their dilated eyes evaluating their physical structure.
Realistically, I may never fully get over my fear. Life, parenting and health are too precarious for that. To counteract life’s uncertainty all I can do is give thanks for every kind of health-related appointment that is routine.
We were at the gym as a family. Even though Full Speed grumbled over having to go to the kids’ zone it was still a mostly successful outing. As we were wrapping things up to head to lunch, Mad Dog received a work call. While he was resolving the issue at hand, I grabbed the boys and headed to the foosball table in the gym’s common area. The game between the boys started off nicely enough and then their competitive spirit had things heading south in a hurry. A physical altercation was brewing and I saw some karate chops to the head in T.Puzzle’s near future. When Mad Dog was finally able to join us he made the snap decision that we needed to get out of there fast. I didn’t see the hurry because my boys are going to be crazy no matter where they are. Foosball table or not, smack-downs will happen. Mad Dog completely agreed with me (smart man). However, he thought it was best to relocate to a place where nobody would recognize us.
Full Speed and T.Puzzle catching up on some dino-facts.
In our home the questions are relentless. When I’m about to eat a nice brunch at a lovely dining establishment I don’t really want to ponder why carnivorous dinosaurs have tiny arms. Yes, meat-eating dinosaurs can be quite large and yes, some of these have oddly sized chicken arms. Do I need to discuss this at length? No. Do I even know that much about dinosaurs? Not really. Should I consider pursuing an advanced degree in paleontology? To save my sanity probably yes. Once we all were seated at the lovely dining establishment and about to peruse our menus, Full Speed says, “Mom, Mom, Mom!” He’s holding a miniature plastic dinosaur in his hand as he attempted to grab my attention.
“Hold it right there, Full Speed. Didn’t I already tell you that I addressed the short-armed meat-eating dinosaur situation? I don’t want to talk about it anymore.”
Full Speed bravely proceeds and says, “Yes, I know but I’m not talking about that anymore. I’m talking about the PLANT-eating dinosaur. See? His arms are super short, too.”
This morning at Full Speed’s school there was a black-out. The timing could not have been worse. It happened only an hour before the start of school so there was not enough time to notify parents. A teacher approached us and told us the situation. Apparently around 7 in the morning a transformer had caught fire and the entire school lost power. As a Mom of boys the first thought that popped in my head was ‘why was there a Transformer (i.e. Bumblebee and/or Optimus Prime) on fire and why did it make the whole school go dark?’
Everything is not a race. Could someone please, please tell this to my boys?
