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Do you ever experience a moment that seems frozen as it is happening... a moment that seems to be a snapshot in real-time?  A few months ago my 13 year old discovered the T.V. show Hoarders on Netflix.

Oh my word.  I cannot watch it.  It's horrifying.  Even hearing an episode from a distance makes me want to put everything I own in the back of a truck on a one way trip to GoodWill or at the least douse the house with bleach.  It's funny to me that my 13 year old loves the show.  Her room is generally a mess but she is a "stress cleaner".  When life gets rough she fetches a broom.

What I didn't know was that she had watched a few episodes with my 4 year old one evening.  Late that night I heard rustling from his bedroom.  Late, very late.  I slowly opened the bedroom door to be met by an unexpected tableau.  A frozen moment.  A snapshot of pure and utter frenzy.

My 4 yo was sitting on the ground with his dresser drawers all pulled out and surrounding him.  He had removed everything and neatly folded and rolled them and was replacing all the clothing in a sort of color wheel manner.  His bed behind him was made and flat with his pillow and stuffed animals arranged with military precision.  Before I could utter a sound he looked up at me with a completely crazed look and said with unusual urgency, "I HAVE TO KEEP MY ROOM CLEAN!"

Note to older children regarding new family rule:  Hoarders is now rated pg-13.


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Poor child number seven.  Think of all the sibling names he has to learn, then add in the names of friends of siblings.  For a long time he used his oldest sister's name (Grace) exclusively, as a generic word to express "female sibling" because they all look so stinkingly confusingly alike.

Recently he was trying to tell me about a conversation he had had.  "I was talking to her and,"

"Who is her?" I inquired.

"Well, it was the nice and really pretty girl what was at our house but what doesn't belong here."

Oh, in other words, not a sister.

 This morning, he was talking to his dad and mentioned that the chain had come off of his bike.  He explained that, "I asked someone in our family, what is a girl, to fix it but she said she couldn't."

Smiling his father asked, "Did you ask the tall girl that looks like Grace?"

"No, the one what looks like Sarah." was the thoughtful reply.

Victory.

We are growing up.  As for using "what" incorrectly as a relative pronoun, we still have a ways to go.



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Watching is a stage in modern Parenting.

You sit and watch birthday parties.
You sit and watch ballet practice.
You sit and watch piano practice.
You sit and watch bike riding in your cul-de-sac.
You sit and watch park playing.
You sit and watch... fill in the blank.
The newest for me is sitting and watching mixed martial arts.

All this sitting (and drinking coffee/knitting) on the sidelines,  it has me pondering.

About 15 years ago when my oldest two were little and at the developmental stage of attending 40 billion birthday parties a weekend none of the parents ever stayed for the party.  Ever.  We dropped off and gleefully drove away to run errands or ferry siblings to a different party.  However now, at least in my area of the country, parents generally stay.  An even bigger change is that Dad's come too now.  Weird.

Watching has been taken to a whole new level.  I don't know that it is entirely a good thing.

But I do know that henceforth, coffee should be required per State law at every child's birthday party.



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I just heard through my FOD support group that a 22 year old woman with a clear diagnosis and a letter of medical protocol in case of emergency died this summer in a Texas emergency room because the doctors did not follow her letter of protocol.

Guess what the main protocol is for a FOD'er who shows up in an emergency room- immediately start an I.V. of D-10.

Is D-10 a rare or controlled substance?  Is is unusually expensive and not covered by insurance? Nope.
It's basically liquid sugar.

I'm not kidding, the D stands for dextrose- sugar.

The problem is that FODs are so rare that some doctors around the world who are used to treating diabetics take a blood sugar and think,   "Hmmm blood sugars look o.k. to me what's the big deal?  I think this protocol letter is annoying because it usurps my feelings of being omniscient and omnipotent.  Who cares that it was written by a geneticist or neurologist that specializes in a disorder I personally know nothing about?  I'm not going to be pushed around."

And then someone dies that did not have to.  And the rest of us are a bit more scared to travel ANYWHERE away from our home hospitals.

So; if you are a doctor, if you dream of being a doctor-  remember that you need to listen and be humble enough to keep learning.  Always.  Your patients will thank you and you will spare yourself the pain of having to live with the knowledge that your arrogance/stupidity killed someone.





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