In Case You Think It’s Under Control

Fear not. It’s not. We have fleeting moments of parenting brilliance. Lots of moments of survival. And moments of abject failure. As always, failure points are the funniest.

Little gardener

We’ve started cathing Fiona. By “we,” I clearly mean Mike. He’s a total master. I’m trying to learn. Bugs is a trooper – but she’s also really smart. So when she has an option, she asks for her dad to do it. Because really, mom is just terrible at it (although I’m not getting any better with her clear preference for daddy). She throws me a bone once in a while and tells me I can put the “cold medicine” in [we insert antibiotics directly into her bladder through the catheter and we have to keep them in the fridge. So it is, quite literally, cold. Apparently I have been deemed proficient at that step].

Because she has been such a trooper with the whole process, we wanted to recognize it. So we got her “the frozen” (the movie Frozen … which she calls “the frozen”). She was really excited and proud that she earned it by being so good. And she promptly asked to watch it. Which surprises no one … except the two people who gave it to her and had no intention of letting her watch it because we limit television and it's beautiful outside. So her reward for being a trooper is instead that she gets to carry around the DVD case of “the frozen” – and maybe pray for rain. Give us a call if you want advice on how to reward your children for good behavior – we’re clearly masters. Sigh …

Then yesterday, we were getting everyone ready to head out the door. I grabbed pants, shirt, and socks from each girl’s drawer and handed out to the appropriate recipient. Fiona really struggled with getting her shirt on, which is unusual. So Mike helped her out. I made a mental note that the shirt looked like it was getting small and we all continued with the morning routine. Mid-morning at work, I suddenly realized that the shirt looked small because it was QUINN’S! When I put the laundry away, I put it in the wrong drawer. And since I grabbed it out of Fiona’s drawer, I didn't even think about it. So I sheepishly called A and asked her to please help the poor child get a shirt that she could breathe in.

Another sigh.