On Monday Jaden was irritable, to say the least. His fever had increased, at one point topping out at 105. He was so miserable, I could tell he was in a lot of discomfort and it drives me crazy to see him like that and not be able to do anything about it. We called the doctor’s office when they opened; the nurse who took the call thought he might have a sinus infection and said to bring him in. So I bundled up my sick child, and dragged him to the doctor’s office, only to have them tell me that we need to wait 24 to 48 hours before they can do anything for him. So why did we go in? I just don’t get it. They did however say that if his fever doesn’t break by Tuesday they want him to go for a chest x-ray to rule out pneumonia. Great. So Tuesday morning when his fever was still over 104 I bundled him up once again and dragged him out into the cold to the hospital out-patient center for a chest x-ray.

Let the fun begin! I know I’ve said this before, but Jaden is what some parenting books call a ‘spirited’ child, meaning he doesn’t do anything without putting up a tremendous fight (unless it’s something he enjoys, like eating cake and ice cream). The two of us (Jaden and I) went into the hospital on Tuesday, and all I could think is “How on earth are they going to get him to sit still for an x-ray without doping him up on general anesthesia”? I should have taken that thought as a forewarning.

After waiting almost an hour we finally were called to go into the x-ray room. Three women there asked me if Jaden will stand up in front of the bulls eye they have on the wall so they can take his x-ray. Ha Ha Ha. He’s TWO — what do you think he’s going to do? First of all, I couldn’t even pry him off of me – he had his legs in a vice grip around my waist and his hands clawed at my shoulders as if his life depended on it. So they said, “okay, then you’ll have to get in the x-ray with him” – whatever.

Maybe we should have gone to Children’s hospital where they have all kinds of tricks to get kids to participate in things they normally don’t want to do. But here we were, at the out-patient center with not a lot of options, so I said okay, donned the lovely lead apron that is so fashionable in these hangouts, and tried my best to hold Jaden in a stable enough position that they could get the x-ray. By this point Jaden had already decided that he did not like these women, he did not like that I had to pry him loose in order to put the lead apron on, and he was not going to, under any conditions, allow me to hold him still so they could get the x-ray. Somehow they managed it anyway, but by the time they did, we were both traumatized.

…….

Well, I’ve now lost my train of thought since I put this down about an hour ago. As I was writing that last sentence, over the baby monitor I heard the usual coughing, then gagging, then puking fit. Neville was holding Jaden by the time he tossed up his ice cream and milk, so it was all over Neville, all over Jaden, and all over the carpet. This time it was much earlier than every night past, so maybe this means he’s getting better?

What fun parenting can be. I never imagined I’d be watching Neville clean Nestle’s Quik colored spew off of our beige carpets, but here we were, me holding Jaden trying to keep him from getting even more upset than he already was, and Neville trying to clean up the mess and hide the smell so we can get Jaden back to bed asap.

That just about sums up what we’ve been through every night. Here’s hoping one more day will do the trick.