For those of you who are counting, and I realize that it's just me, it's day 25 of R's being gone. But you know, we are still alive and kicking and after the whole finger thing, everything else magically seems manageable.
Right after R left, the BX called and said that the bed we ordered for T had come in. Unfortunately, my order was missing the mattress. So I took what did come in and lugged it up to our apartment. Wednesday evening, the day of spectacular unhappiness in the Dahl household, the BX calls. The mattress is here. And..(wait for it, waaaaaait for it) they want to deliver it on Thursday for FREE to compensate me for my trouble. (Doing the happy dance of not having to drag a mattress up three flights of stairs). Gratefully, I tell them I will stay home ALL DAY and they can deliver at their convenience. Yipee - and also - HA! to my sorry, paper stealing neighbors who would like nothing more that to watch me drag a mattress up the stairs while not offering to help.
The mattress comes in the early afternoon - so I coax T into 'helping' me get it in his room and onto the boxspring. We make the bed together and he proceeds to jump on it to break it in. S is excited because T is excited and I'm excited because there is harmony in my household. Finally! This is the mommyhood I thought I was signing up for. T doesn't even protest about taking a nap on his new bed and manages (at the time of this entry) not to pull all the bedding off even once. Things are looking up.
Friday dawns, and it's the day that we need to remove the stitches. I wisely decide not to mention this to T. We have a great morning - out the door on time without any stressing out, multiple errands completed before picking T up from school, and it's pay day so I can order pizza for dinner if I so choose.
I pick T up from school. The class has taken a field trip to the community playhouse, so that's where I go and get him. My friend Kellie and her two kids are there, so I realize it's going to be a little tricky to get T to leave. S and I go in, and I'm chatting with Mrs J and Kellie while T and the other kids are playing. He's happy to see me, which is always a good sign. The playhouse closes at 1:30, and people usually start leaving around 1 pm (mostly so they aren't the ones picking up the toys their kids leave all over, but that's just another one of my little pet peeves). I need to have T at the pediatric clinic around 1 to have his stitches removed, so I start the 15 minute countdown. All of a sudden, I hear this tremendous noise and as I suspected, T and two other little boys have dumped an entire bucket of legos and accessories onto the floor. Since Kellie and another mom had just cleaned all that up, I start to walk over to T. As he sees me coming, he starts scattering legos to the four corners of the universe.
Sniiiiiiiffffff. Sniiiiiiiiiiiiiiif. I smell a battle coming.
Ensuing battle - condensed version. Me: Let's pick up the legos. It's okay to play with them, but not okay to scatter them across the entire floor.
T: NO!
Me: We are going to pick up the legos. I'll help you, come on.
T: NONONONONONOONOOOOOOO
Me: (trying not to grit my teeth) If you do not help pick up all this stuff you scattered across the floor, you are going to lose your trains and tracks for one day.
T: NO trains! NO track. NO. NONONONONONOONONOONOO
Me: Okay, your choice.
I start picking up legos and the other kids and Kellie help me. T starts screaming bloody murder, which coincidentally, is what I'm considering at the moment. When that doesn't affect me, he comes at me, swinging. I catch his arms before he can hit me and say quietly but fiercely - do NOT hit me. I continue picking up legos. We now have quite the audience and I see Mrs. J out of the corner of my eye looking horrified. Yeah.. see what I deal with!??!!?!? And then I hear S wail. According to Kellie, T just flattened her. Oy! The images of growing up with my brother flash through my mind. I calmly drag him to the side of the room and hiss in his ear - that is UNACCEPTABLE. Whatever you do to her, I'm going to do to you - twice. Do you understand? Now, I know this is not the best way to handle the situation. But you know - I'm tired of the public standoffs. They rarely happen in private. They don't happen when he's with Mrs. J. And until Supernanny comes and teaches me a more effective way of dealing with this - this is all I've got.
Legos cleaned up, we battle over putting on shoes. T refuses to leave. Loudly. I'm getting sympathetic looks from everyone that's had the courage to stay and witness this war. As a bonus, I'm no longer embarrassed by this massive display of ummm.. individuality, I'm just committed to leaving the scene with as much dignity as possible. I do admit, however, that it flashed through my mind to head right over to the barbershop and plop our behinds down right behind grumpy the barber and just let T get it all out. Alas, we need to have the stitches removed. As I haul T out the door kicking and screaming, I hear the cleaning lady say, 'that lady need help'. WORD!
So, we arrive at the pediatric clinic. I get S strapped into the stroller and manage to get T into the waiting room with no further hysterics, until he hears me say we are there to have the stitches removed. Then he starts to cry - not the defiant, makes me want to tape his mouth shut rebellious cry of barbershop and playhouse fame - but the sad, scared I really don't want to do this mommie cry that on any other day would have melted my heart. But, it's not any other day. I pick him up and somehow manage to speak calmly and soothingly to him AND mean it. Maybe I have multiple personality disorder. Hmmm.. I need to look into that.
The airman that is going to be removing the stitches takes us into the room. T is crying and upset, but lets me unwrap his hand and lets Sgt. S (can't remember his last name, drat it) look at his finger and bring out all sorts of scary looking (in my opinion) equipment. Sgt. S is a godsend (bowing down to the greatness that he is). He manages to convince T to let him take out the stitches. T watches the whole thing, big, fat tears rolling down his cheeks, but doesn't jerk his hand away or freak out. My brave, brave little man. All done, we decide to x-ray the finger on Tuesday. We've all had enough for one day. The Doctor takes a look at it and says it looks good but that the fingernail may end up coming off. I hope not, but even if it does, it will grow back because the nail bed wasn't damaged. I hope. And, I don't have to keep the finger wrapped up any more. T had a completely different idea about that and insists that I wrap it up when we get home. I don't blame him. I wouldn't want to look at it either, and it's probably still sore. I even get him in the tub tonight. It's the first time his hand has been submerged in water in almost two weeks. Even though we've been trying hard to keep it clean, it needed a good soak. T wanted the bandage left on, but let me change it immediately after the bath. Hopefully I can convince him to take his next bath without the bandage.
And so starts our weekend. Tomorrow Sam and I are doing a little road trip to Monschau. Should be interesting. 
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