Shifting priorities

Apparently, there's nothing I like better from time to time than a reason to be outraged.

When I decided (pretty last minute for us) to plan the trip to NC, I told a friend of mine what I was thinking and she invited me to attend Zumba with her down here if I decided to come. Well, heck yeah! I love me some Zumba. So after I talked to R and we had sketched out a rough idea of when I would come and how long I would stay, I called Mom to ask her if she could watch the kids while I went to Zumba those two nights. She said yes. The plan making continued.

We made it down safe and sound and have had a great week swimming in the hotel pool and seeing family and friends. Turns out I got the Zumba days wrong, so I missed the Monday class seeing as how I thought it would be on Tuesday. But Mom was all set to watch the kids on Tuesday, so my friend and I did one of our marathon walk and talks. Gosh, how I miss those! (And how much I miss you, C!) We made plans to meet for Thursday Zumba and I decided that since we made it down here in a day, I could drive back in a day and we would leave on Friday. The kids have gymnastics on Saturday morning, or it wouldn't matter at all.

Today we are at Mom's and we are chatting and she tells me that she and her husband have a bridge tournament this weekend in (I think) Greenville, SC. Greenville is 2-3ish hours away from where Mom lives in NC. They have decided to leave Thursday night.

Oh.

But she will watch the kids while I go to Zumba, and what time do I think I'll be done? Zumba does not start until 7:15, so I won't be back to her house until 8:30 or 9:00.

Oh.

Now, I realize that my next paragraph or two is going to paint an unflattering, albeit honest portrait of me. So be it. My emotions swing wildly for the next minute or two as I sit there speechless. And then I get angry. Really, really angry.

I'm angry that there has been such a push for me to stay on Thursday night by Mom only to now find out they are going to be waiting on me to get back from Zumba so they can leave. Let me explain why this bothers me.

It bothers me that it's after 4 pm on Wednesday and I'm just now being told. It bothers me that NOW if they get a late start it's all going to be my fault it will add one more rock in the shoe of the dynamic between Mom, her husband and me. Trust me... the shoe? Full of rocks already. Nice, big, lumpy, sharp rocks.

So I'm sitting there, not really saying anything, trying to think through this in my head carefully but quickly before I say anything based solely on emotion that I might regret later. If their leaving depends on my coming back from Zumba, then there's no reason to stay for Zumba. I know Chris will understand but be disappointed (as am I!!!). But the upside to leaving for Illinois on Thursday is that we can take our time going back and hopefully the kids and I won't be so exhausted when we get there. We've been going hard this week. We are all tired (but in a good way). Plus, I kinda figured something like this would happen, because this kind of thing? Is really pretty common with Mom's husband.

So. If we are going to leave tomorrow, then I need to go and get a couple things for the trip back. I ask Mom if she'll watch the kids while I run to the store and she agrees. I also need a minute to myself to deal with this in a hopefully calm and mature manner. :snort: Also? :eye roll:

I call Chris and tell her what's going on. She's understanding, as always. She also feels my pain. I go to the store and get the few things I need. I called Dad to ask if we could stop by because I wanted to see him and Susan before we left to go home. And for whatever reason, the anger and frustration turned into tears, and then I had to try to explain why I was upset. He couldn't hear me very well and I really didn't want to talk about it anyway, so we agreed on a time that the kids and I would come over.

I get back to Mom's and she and the kids are taking a walk around the neighborhood. I get out of the car and Mom says something about not wanting me to leave until Friday. I ask her why she didn't tell me before a few minutes ago about the bridge trip and she says that she didn't tell me because she didn't want me to leave. I think she meant on Thursday. But really? What would it matter if I left on Thursday if she wasn't going to be here anyway? I have theories. Rest assured. The conversation doesn't really go anywhere, so we all take another lap around the neighborhood. I was supposed to meet my brother and his family for dinner after we went to see Dad, so I told Mom I needed to go back to the hotel and take a shower and therefore I needed to pack up the kids' stuff we had there and get a move on.

As we walk in the kitchen from the garage, T asks Richard for water. Richard gives him a glass versus a bottled water or a plastic cup. Brave. I head up to gather the kids' things and a few minutes later, I hear Richard call my name. Then I hear T crying. I go downstairs and see T with a bloody paper towel wrapped around his hand. What the hell!?!?!?

Priority shift.

Richard tells me that T has cut his finger and there might be glass in the cut. We go into the bathroom and I remove the paper towel and rinse off T's thumb. I want to see if I can tell if there's glass in there. I can't tell. What I can tell is that T and I will be spending some time in the ER. I turn off the water and realize then how badly it's bleeding. I wrap it back up, ask Mom to keep S, and off we go to the nearest hospital, which is actually pretty close. I call for authorization from our insurance on the way and when I explain what's happening, they tell me to G.O. GO to the nearest ER and call them the next day to handle the paperwork side.

We spend 3 1/2 hours in the ER, even though they take us back right away. They also get the bleeding stopped. T is going to have to have stitches. The bad news? He's going to have nerve blocker shots to numb his finger and they are going to hurt a LOT. T is not a shots kind of kid. I'm not looking forward to this for him. I try to strike a balance between honesty and not scaring him to death and while he's not happy about shots or stitches, his finger hurts pretty badly, so he's game for whatever will make his finger stop hurting.

The staff gets the nerve blocking stuff set up, careful to hide the needle from T. We have him hold my hand and look at me, and we begin. And he screams. And it rips my heart apart that not only is he hurting, but that I can't help and I have to make him go through this. Arggh. And then comes shot number two. And he screams. And I know what that feels like from having stitches in my lip after my first unkind encounter with a metal pole. The 'numbing' shots? Burn like you are on fire and I ended up opting not to be numb and to let the doctor just stitch me up without it. It was actually easier and less painful.

Then we wait for the numbing to take effect and I pull out all my silly mom tricks to get his mind off of it. Eventually it works and by the time they come in to do stitches, he's laughing and joking. The doctor explains in kid friendly terms what happens next and we begin. Well, we begin until they actually start poking around in the cut to make sure that there is no glass in there and then the screaming begins again. Oh, crap. He's not numb. The doctor shoots some more nerve blocker into the cut itself since the surface skin is numb. T is screaming bloody murder and rightfully so since we've been telling him for an hour how this wouldn't hurt anymore and then he gets more needles and burning. Oh my gosh! This poor kid!!!!! Then he sees the needle. And he just freaks. (Can't say that I blame him.) After that, we just had to hold him down and power through. Once we get the finger wrapped and we can go, T is okay. He just wants out of there and something to eat.

So. Wow. It turns out that T went outside with the glass of water, saw a spider, decided to catch it by putting the glass over it. So he pours out the water and tries to catch the spider under the glass. He does this by slamming the glass down over the spider on the concrete driveway. Naturally the glass shatters and pain and bleeding result. By the way? I have to get all of this from T, because Richard? Isn't saying a word about how it happened. And on an outraged mom front? I am ALL kinds of pissed that Richard would even give T anything to drink out of that was made out of glass in the first place since Richard knows that T has trouble with sensory issues and is always doing things too hard. Then again, why am I surprised? Mr. PhD in biochemistry also thought it would be a good idea to give T asprin as a toddler.

I wouldn't wish pain or distress on anyone, but what happened with T made me realize that while I'm upset over this sudden announcement of last minute change in plans, it's not the tragedy I was making it out to be. It's just a thing that is. And I will deal. And in the future? I'll figure out another child care solution for our visits to NC for the things I really, really want to do when I'm here.