On the heels of Mother's Day, I have been thinking about what a terrible mom I have been lately. When my kids were little, I would drag them to the doctor for fevers and earaches. Now that they are older, they seem sturdier and I am less likely to take them...
It seems reckless to say but it's just a pain to drag them to the doctor in the few hours at the end of a school day. (If they were really sick, I would keep them home and take them.). To sit in the office surrounded by sick toddlers for a rather minor complaint doesn't appeal to me. I play doctor, wait it out or we write it down on a post it to ask the doctor the next time we go. I can't believe I am 'fessing up to this because this is exactly the type of thing that I would judge another mother harshly for. And, since I am being overly honest here, how harshly I judge depends on how much I like the mom. You know, sometimes you are just looking for a reason to give out mental demerits...
If I feel like being charitable to me, I guess I would qualify my terribleness with the belief that a mother knows her own child. You know when something is really wrong and you know how each child's body works. My kids all feel pain differently. When one says their ear hurts, I give them a warm washcloth. When another child's ear hurts, we hasten to the doctor because an eardrum rupture is imminent. Once, a child of mine walked into the doctor and answered the pain level question with "Um, a ten." Really? You walked in here! (The stories about the "Boy Who Cried Wolf" don't seem to sink in.) Another child is usually pretty accurate about their condition. My point is- if I was really worried I would take them.
The reason why I am feeling terrible is that one of my children has recently been diagnosed as lactose intolerant. Diagnosed by me, the said child and the Internet. And I have yet to take her to confirm it. Let me 'splain. She has had stomach aches for a while. (And we did talk to the doctor about them!). But we couldn't seem to find a pattern to them. They seemed to mostly be school days so the doctor and I agreed that it must be stress. But it wasn't always. (I have always said that I am so clueless that if I threw up every time I ate strawberries, it would take me years to make that connection.) Recently, my daughter had a particularly bad episode and I said, "That's it. We have to go to a gastro guy. But first we need to make a food diary because we need to know the pattern." Did we go to the gastro guy? No. Because writing it all down, we realized she'd had an awful lot of dairy. I bought lactase and said let's try this for 2 weeks and, boom, stomach better.
And now that we are looking at the dairy, it all made sense. School days she'd have a big glass of milk with breakfast. (Way to poison her, mom!) But not always on the weekend. Logically, if lactase fixed the problem then she must be lactose intolerant. Right? But I still feel terrible for not having someone with a degree confirm it. And I will. Soon -I swear. But since she now feels fine, I keep forgetting. Don't judge me! Ok, you can. But just a little.
This weekend, the same child had a friend over who is gluten free. As a wheat addict, I didn't quite know what to offer her. It's so hard for my brain to process. There is flour in everything. Or at least, everything that matters to me. I was so grateful that mine is only lactose intolerant (according to doctor mom) and that a pill makes it all better.
I don't know if I'd ever even take my kids to get evaluated if I suspected a gluten intolerance. I might just never admit to the symptoms. I don't want to know! They might just have to suffer until they move out... How would we go on without wheat? Damn. See, I was going to take her to the doctor just to double check my diagnosis but now I am afraid. What if it's not milk at all? What if I am deluding myself. Maybe I'll wait a little bit longer. Okay, you can judge me. I guess I deserve it...
(I'll just be waiting here as I enjoy a bagel...and some ravioli and some pizza and some cookies...)
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