It's Never Too Late for Thanksgiving: Or, How I learned to Stop Bitching and Love My Toddler

God help me, I am in the midst of a snow day here! There is about 8 inches of snow out there and it is still coming down. The boys are running wild indoors and out and demanding hot chocolate every half hour. Serenity now, serenity now, serenity, now, serenity NOW!

Okay, breathe, dammit! .... .... .... Alright, I can carry on.

I wanted to say a big thank you to Deb and Jay at Dirty Socks and Pizza and HalftimeLessons for featuring my blog their "MISSION: Monday" yesterday! What fun to expose lots of new people to my, um, "twisted" parenting and life style. I didn't say twisted, Jay did. You be the judge. ;-)

So here is the serious part of my post.

I know I like to berate my children and make fun of them, complain about them, yell at them, laugh at them, etc. But I really do love those little guys. And no matter how much of myself I lose to them and their needs, I am profoundly grateful that I have been blessed with them and this life that my husband and I have made for ourselves.

So what happened to make my stop my bitching for a moment to acknowledge this? Belated Thanksgivings, perhaps? No.... The Christmas spirit, you say? No, again....


What made me pause and reassess is the fact that I spent yesterday morning at the hospital with my two-year-old. Yes, the same one that jumped on the buttermilk. You see, the Animal had a lump appear on his neck about three months ago that we have been keeping an eye on and making trips to doctor, then the ENT about. After an eight week observation period, two weeks of antibiotics, and a lot of "palpating" the doctor finally ordered a CAT scan and a needle biopsy of the mass to determine exactly what the heck it is. As any parent would (logically or not), I automatically thought CANCER, but then quietly pushed that into a box and then put that box into another box to keep away from my conscious thoughts. The doctor assured us that it is very common for kids to have enlarged lymph nodes for lots of reasons that are not "bad" or that it could also easily be a cyst that is no big deal. So, we got that news last Tuesday and have had to walk around with it until yesterday morning. I've been watching his every move trying to read into everything he does or doesn't do.... is it a sign of something deeper, something really being wrong with him?? A terrible place to be in your mind and not a place I want to visit again any time soon.

The good news is that the biopsy and scan went well and that, by all accounts, the mass is just a calcified lymph node! Phew. It turns out that if your body has an infection that causes a lymph node to get enlarged, and stay enlarged long enough, scar tissue can form in the node making it stay that enlarged size. The body will reabsorb it over time, but he could have the lump for years. They still did a biopsy to make sure that it wasn't an infection like TB or toxoplasmosis or a fungus that caused it to swell. We should get those tests back today or tomorrow, but they seem pretty inconsequential after even the tiniest possibility of it being something much, much worse.

So, despite the buttermilk, the pushing, the spitting, the shouting, and all the other things that little fella does to make me crazy....I just want to scoop him up and kiss him and hug him and enjoy all the moments in the day that I am blessed with being his mommy. And that, despite the issues we may have, I've got a pretty rockin' family.