Doc-umentation

Posted on June 8, 2016 by deconstructingdoctor

IMG_2999She sends me messages all the time.  Snarky.  Accusatory.  Judgmental.  Always in the middle of my busy day.  Sometimes the messages come all at once, sometimes spaced out just enough to make me think she’s gone for good.  I’ve slowly developed a hatred for her.  I’ve never met her, but I loathe her.  She sits in a cubicle somewhere, drilling systematically into my charts, searching for my mistakes.

She points out my shortcomings.

My inadequacies.

Who are you to judge me, lady?  You don’t know me!  But she’s right.  Damn her.  Most of the time, she’s right.  Except sometimes.  And when she’s not, I let her know.  Snarky.  Accusatory.  Judgmental.  I’m not above that.  Except, I really am and I feel a bit guilty.  She’s just doing her job, that I pay her for.  I need her to do this to make sure I am doing my job so I can get paid so that she can get paid so that the cleaning crew can get paid and the light bill gets paid and the vaccine vender gets paid and the nurses get paid and the front office gets paid and the rent gets paid and I keep this place going.

It all comes down to documentation these days.  And I try my damnedest to get everything possible documented, but I just can’t always do it.  Sometimes I fall short.  I fall short in documentation of all things.  Big deal.  As long as I don’t fall short in taking care of my patients.  That’s what really matters.  Isn’t it?

I just want to tell her that.  Listen, lady, I’m a good doctor, maybe I’m just not good at documenting.  I’m taking care of people.  I can’t possibly document all the nuances of that!  The hugs, the tears, the jokes, the laughs, the relationships, the ‘thank you’s,’ the secrets, the hurts, the joys, the loss, the healing, the fears, the hope.  All of these are worth so much more than a payout.  I can’t document that or get paid for that.  That‘s the good stuff.  That‘s what keeps me going.

I did a little reconnaissance and looked her up on the company website.  I wanted to know what that lady looked like so I could a put a face to those accusatory messages.  That was a mistake.  She looked nice.  How can I hate her anymore?  Now I just have to redirect that anger on myself.  Great.  As if being a doctor doesn’t give one enough reasons to feel imperfect.  Powerless.  You know, like untreatable diseases and death.  And now I’m at the mercy of documentation.  Something else I can do nothing about.

 

Posted in Healthcare Today, Medical Musings | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Chili Con Mortem

Posted on June 5, 2016 by deconstructingdoctor

IMG_2815Great grandma was a spry old bird.  She was tiny and sure-footed.  She darted about her neat little home.  We visited her quite often.  Quite often for our family who rarely visited anyone.  Almost every Saturday or Sunday we would be at her home or pick her up and bring her to ours.  She wasn’t a particularly warm or personable type.  She was quiet.   She never offered up unsolicited stories of her past.  NEVER.  It was like pulling teeth.

  • Do you remember when the first telephone was invented?  -No.
  • Did you have a TV when you were a kid?  -No.
  • Did you have a refrigerator?  -Yes.
  • Were there dinosaurs?  -No.
  • Where did you meet Great Grandpa?  -I don’t remember.

It was always like that.  I found her fascinating mostly because she was a great mystery.  She was born in 1898 in New York.  One particularly odd Christmas, my cousins and I sat around her feet asking her questions and she opened up a bit.

  • She had a refrigerator as a kid, but it was not electric, you had to buy ice from the ice man to put inside to keep things cold.  All the kids in the neighborhood would run after the horse drawn carriage picking up the ice chips that fell off the back to eat especially in the summer.
  • There was a milkman, too.
  • Her father played the trumpet.
  • She had a brother and he was as old as she was.
  • She never saw a dinosaur.

Whenever we went to her house, she always prepared our family a meal.  Usually it was chili.  The worst chili in the world.  Chili is bad, anyway.  I don’t like it.  But great grandma’s chili was particularly bad.  Even my folks, who love chili, would cringe if they found her stirring the pot when we walked in her home.  Everyone knew that it would be a rough night on our own pot.  What was so bad about her chili, anyway?

There were the adequate parts ground beef and red beans.  They swam in an oily red liquid that tasted like farts on fire.  A strange burning sensation would occur at the back of my throat, my eyes would water, and my nose would run, the mucoid drainage mixing with the spicy concoction further intensifying the need to hurl.

Grandma, do you have any bread?  -Oh, yes, here’s the bread, honey.

I like bread a lot.  I need a lot of bread.  -OK, here’s the bread.

Bread helped a little.  Sort of soaked up the juicy badness.  Great grandma ate the heck out of that damn chili.  Seriously, what was her stomach made of?  She would get a second bowl and offer another to each of us.  A resounding and enthusiastic chorus of “NO! No thank you, we’re full,” would answer her.  We had barely choked down the first bowl.

Somewhere around my teenage years, great grandma would make chili for my parents and something else for me.  My parents would scowl at me between bites of grandma’s chili and I would smile broadly in return.  How did she know?  Did my newly developed snarky teenage facial features betray me?  I never told her that I hated chili, her chili, any chili, but mostly her chili.  I was saved.  I was set free from the intestinal bondage.  I couldn’t believe my luck.  Now she made me fish sticks.  The best fish sticks in the world.

Great grandma passed away years ago, taking her chili recipe to the grave.  Where it belongs.  RIP.

The Worst Cook in the World

 

 

Posted in My Stories | Tagged , | 7 Comments

The Worst Cook in the World

Posted on June 1, 2016 by deconstructingdoctor

IMG_2781

If there was a contest for the “Worst Cook in the World,” I would enter.  I would probably win. I think there was once a TV show about it.  I don’t want to be on TV for the whole world to see how incredibly inept I am in this regard, but I don’t mind sharing it with you guys.  It is my greatest failure in life.  Nothing I make tastes good.  It lacks imagination.  I’m easily confused by recipes and weird cooking terminology like chiffonade, braise, demi-glace, parbroil, saute, roux.  I have a degree in chemistry so you would think that cooking would be a natural extension, but it’s not, not at all, not even a little bit.  Why am I the worst cook in the world?

  1. My parents bought a microwave in the 80’s.  They took a cooking class at Sears and took me with them.  I was little.  I learned to cook in a Sears cooking class for people who bought their first microwave.  Isn’t this reason enough?  They even showed us how to make eggs in the microwave.  Have you ever made eggs in the microwave?  There is nothing more vile in the world.  They taste bad, but what a fascinating experiment.  They puff up to 10 times their size.
  2. I didn’t have any sweet grandmothers to teach me.  My parents both worked, I was an  only child.  My only living grandmother was a terrible cook.  My great grandmother was a terrible cook.  Someday I’ll write about my great grandmother’s chili. (Chili Con Mortem)  It’s epic in its awfulness and to this day I will not touch chili with a 10 foot pole.  Chili cook-offs?  Did you say hell on earth?
  3. I burned food in a crockpot.  Twice.  The first time I did it, I thought something was wrong with the crockpot.  It was somehow malfunctioning so I bought another crockpot.  And it happened again.  I added the required liquid, set the required time, left the house only to return to the worst smell in the world and the most burnt looking pile of crap you could ever imagine.  Not once, but twice (in case that didn’t sink in the first time I wrote it).
  4. I once convinced my Mother-in-Law to let me cook the turkey for the family Christmas Eve dinner.  I bought a giant turkey and cooked it all day.  It smelled heavenly.  I brought it to her home and when my Father-in-Law carved the turkey, it was raw.  The look on their faces…absolute horror.
  5. Have you seen that picture above?  We eat a lot of cereal in this house.  Mostly “healthy” cereal.  My husband eats the sugary ones.  Just to be clear.
  6. I don’t think I’ve ever poisoned anyone.  This may disqualify me from the worst cook in the world.  Although, Christmas Eve at the In-Laws was a close one.
  7. Cooking takes forever.  Preparing it takes forever.  Cleaning up after all that crap takes forever.  I don’t have that kind of time.  I don’t have forever.  I have long enough to call something in or go pick something up. I’ve got time for that.

Do I blame the microwave for my inability to cook?  My lack of cooking mentors?  My impatience?  My lack of imagination?  Malfunctioning crock pots?  Yes.  I blame them all.

 

Posted in My Stories | Tagged , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Joy

Posted on May 29, 2016 by deconstructingdoctor

lonely-dog-1391902-640x480My oncologist thinks I’m depressed.

Do you think you’re depressed?

I don’t know.  He asked me, ‘what do you do for fun?’ And I said -I have cancer.  I’m getting chemo.  I’m tired.  I don’t want to do anything.  Everyone keeps asking me about that -‘fun.’  What’s fun?  Any ounce of energy I have goes to doing a load of laundry once in a while, cleaning a toilet.  What can I do for fun?  I don’t want to go bowling or roller skating.  So I guess I’m depressed.  I’m not having any fun.

Let me ask you in a different way.  Fun takes effort, energy that you don’t have.  What about joy?  Do you have joy?  You know, like the feeling of sunshine on your face, hearing your friend’s laugh, eating chocolate ice cream.  Can you find joy in your life?  Your life with cancer and chemo and being tired all the time.  Does anything give you joy?

She hesitated.  Contemplated.  Slumped a little and then straightened up.  Her face turned to me and she said matter-of-factly, “no.”

There you have it.  It isn’t fun that you need, it’s joy.  You can have joy even in the face of death, even when you have no energy, even when you are getting chemo.  Joy takes no effort.  It’s not fun, it’s better than that.  Let’s see if we can get your joy back.

OK.  I want that.

So I prescribed her a medication for depression.  I hope it delivers.

 

Photo credit:  Wilmolmas Poklin

Posted in Medical Musings | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Agitated: A Love Story

Posted on May 25, 2016 by deconstructingdoctor

IMG_1653I hate it.  It’s true.  I don’t hate anything quite like I hate my washing machine.  It makes me angry.  It’s pretentious.  It’s dysfunctional.  It made promises it couldn’t keep.  I made a big mistake the day I brought it home.

It starts out like any new relationship, my old one died and I needed a new one.  I was looking for a young, shiny, sleek, new model.  I wanted better than I had before and I was going to spare no expense.  In fact, I would forgo the matching dryer, because I didn’t need the dryer like I needed the washing machine.  I needed it to fill the hole that my old one left behind and fast, because the laundry was piling up.

Laundry has somehow become my job in the home.  I am not complaining in the least.  I LOVE to do the laundry.  I like putting the dirty clothes in the washer with one of those new-fangled detergent pods, turning on the machine, hearing it whirring away until it stops abruptly, and then tossing the deliciously clean clothes into the dryer.  Everything smells so nice and fresh and the clothes are so warm and toasty when they come out of the dryer.  Laundry is such a joy.

That was before my new washing machine.  My old machine and I were together for about 10 years.  I bought it when I started residency and it was just me living alone in an apartment.  I had never purchased a major appliance before.  It was mid grade, with an agitator in the middle that got the water sudsy and really worked my clothes into a lather.  It was dependable.  Reliable.  It kept it’s promises.  My clothes were always fresh and clean.

Fast forward a few years, a move to a new town, a husband, some kids, and my sweet little washing machine that could, just couldn’t anymore.  An orange oily substance leaked out all over the floor and the repairman said I burned out the transmission.  Or was it the radiator?  I might be thinking of my old Toyota…

Shopping for a new machine was daunting, but exciting.  I could go front load, no agitator, high efficiency, water conservation.  I could go high tech, 21st century, digital.  So I did. Everything except the front loader.  I loved my machine, but it was old school.  Imagine if it could do such an incredible job, what must this new machine be able to accomplish and with less water?  I’d be saving the world one load of laundry at a time!

I have had it for about 2 years and I’ve needed the repairman to come out twice.  I have had to go to the local laundry mat for weeks at a time, which is an adventure in itself.  That’s when it hits me.  The machines at the laundromat are like my old one, with an agitator in the middle.  I hold the top open and stare longingly at my soapy clothes dancing around in the water and I fall into a deep melancholy.  I can just see the clothes getting clean.  Oh, how I miss my washing machine!

My clothes stink all the time.  The kids’ clothes take several cycles to get them truly clean (so much for water conservation).  I washed my dog’s blanket last night after he puked on it and it came out of the wash with the exact same puke spot it started with.  How is this possible?  Nothing gets clean.  Not like my old machine.  The one with the agitator. My first washing machine.  You never forget your first.  I really loved that one…sigh.

Posted in My Stories | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments

City Slicken Chicken

Posted on May 21, 2016 by deconstructingdoctor

_DSC0040This isn’t my first rodeo, people, I once had another blog.  Sometimes I look back on those first attempts with a sense of nostalgia.  I think all bloggers try and fail at blogging at least once, I’m sure there are statistics on it somewhere.  My first blog was about my backyard chickens and I called it City Slicken Chicken.  Can you imagine, no one had thought of that catchy title before?  The website was still available as a .com!  I felt like I hit the jackpot.  The blog, however, was a failure.  Mostly because I lost interest and also because I never told anyone I was doing it, so I had no readers, my interest further waning…

I grew up in the city, just outside of Fort Lauderdale, Florida and a million miles away from the future chicken coup with backyard chickens and little garden I would later cultivate in my little piece of heaven.  As a teenager I travelled to North Carolina for a family reunion and it left such a mark on my psyche that I just knew I would live there someday.  North Carolina, with its beautiful tall trees, jutting out from rocky faces, streams and waterfalls just beside the road, and lovely sleepy seaside towns.  North Carolina,where I escaped to for my residency, when my relationship fell apart, where I would later meet my future husband and raise my future children, where I would build my medical practice and become part of a rural community.

There are certainly many charms that go along with living and working in a rural community.  People often equate rural with “not too bright,” but this couldn’t be further from the truth.  There is a vast wealth of knowledge about life and survival to be found in the country.  I think city-dwellers take that for granted.  What would you do if there were no Starbucks or grocery stores?  Could you grow your own food, make what you need, be self sufficient?  That was part of the allure for me when it came to the chickens.  It was such a novelty.  I could not imagine having chickens in my yard in South Florida.  It might even be illegal, but here in the country, it was allowed, encouraged, and accepted.

Technically, my home is IN a neighborhood, IN the country, but some of my neighbors have chickens, too.  On a cool, calm, quiet morning, I can stand in my backyard and hear my neighbor’s rooster crowing, hens clucking, cows mooing, and a peacock making whatever noise they make.  A few roads over a farmer has some peacocks.  Not really sure why, but they are pretty.

Aren’t my chickens pretty?  They are called Barred Rocks.  The rooster is the meanest creature on the planet, I’m not kidding.  Our rooster has attacked everyone in our family and a few friends.  He is securely locked in his pen with his ladies.  We each have our ways of getting in and out unnoticed by him.  The amazing part is I’ve seen raccoons and squirrels scurrying about in the pen and the rooster does NOTHING.  I feed that little shit, give him shelter, make sure he’s got a sweet little hen harem to mount and the thanks I get is he rears up on his tail feather and kicks those little legs at me in attack mode.  If he weren’t so old and his meat so tough, I’d make a meal of him.IMG_2962

My little chickens have provided a steady supply of eggs for my family, my in-laws and a few friends for the past 3 years.  You don’t even know how good an egg can taste until you go out in the coup, pick one or two up, bring them inside and cook them.  Wow.  That’s all I can say about it.  Nothing like it.

Just as an aside, if you were ever interested in raising your own backyard chickens, the roosters are not necessary for the hens to lay eggs, but are a necessary component to make more chickens…

Posted in My Stories | Tagged , , , , , , | 6 Comments

10 Minutes Late

Posted on May 18, 2016 by deconstructingdoctor

IMG_2828I can’t stand being late.  It’s a character flaw or a control issue, I’m not sure which, but I hate being late.  It causes me unbelievable angst.  I have a reoccurring dream/nightmare to prove it.  It takes the “being late” theme to the extreme:

I am in college.  I can’t remember where my class is -so I am wondering around aimlessly, searching, it’s getting later and later, days go by, months, I never get to class, and it’s over.  I never take a test, read a book, or turn in an assignment.  I fail the class.  There goes my GPA.

As dreams/nightmares go, this doesn’t seem all that disturbing.  Try being in my brain.  This is the stuff that would make me wake up screaming (not really).  I have another reoccurring dream/nightmare involving a vile disgusting public restroom and having to pee so bad I almost consider using it, but I digress.

I am not sure where this neurosis comes from.  My mother is never late.  In fact she is always awkwardly early.  She gets somewhere unfashionably premature, therefore, she is never late.  This is probably where it comes from.  I think I may have passed it onto my oldest, who sat in the back of the minivan commenting on the way to school this morning, we’re going to be late, we always pass the bridge at 7:22, and now it’s 7:28…

Yikes (created a monster).

I have a job that pretty much ensures that I am late all day long, every day, for my entire career.  Doctors are famous for making their patients wait, like we are doing it on purpose or something.  Well, I’m not, I can’t speak for my colleagues.  It’s more torture for me than my patients, I assure you.  I have heard rumors of other doctors making their patients wait while they finish a personal phone call or an intense golf game, but I’m not one to fuel the rumor mill so forget you heard that from me.

I would venture to guess that most of my patients would say that I am a particularly prompt doctor (smiles pridefully), but without making the visit feel rushed or that I appear distracted (pats self on back).  It’s a gift really (feeling a little cocky).  Until something happens to muck up the works and I fall maddeningly behind and God forbid I don’t get to eat lunch (that never happens).  Truthfully, as much as it makes me crazy to be late, it can not be helped.

The beauty of family medicine is that behind every door is someone/something surprisingly different.  I never really know what can happen, what secret, what tragedy, what heartbreak, what symptom is revealed.  It’s impossible to factor in these variables in a schedule full of patients.  Sometimes, a little extra time is required, a little extra care, a little extra heart.  I take the time despite my angst because the angst of the patient supersedes mine.  It just does.

If enough of those moments happen in a day, I get behind, even if it’s just 10 minutes (but it’s more like 30).  I guess I just have to accept that being a little late just comes with the territory (get over it already).

OK -I will (not really).

 

Posted in Healthcare Today, Medical Musings | Tagged , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

St-role Model

Posted on May 15, 2016 by deconstructingdoctor

IMG_2026I haven’t been running consistently in months.  Maybe a 5K here and there.  Which sounds kind of odd when you are a non-runner.  Who can just go run a 5K?  Isn’t there preparation, training, effort?  Not when you’ve been doing it for as long as I have.  I can just go run a 5K even if I haven’t run in weeks.

Truthfully, I’m not some kind of superhuman running machine.  I totally suck at it.  It’s just ingrained in my legs and lungs.  They just know what to do.  For now.

I went for a run yesterday for the first time in a long time, of my own free will, without being signed up for a race by my darling husband (you can refer to his influence on my running at an older blog post Running Etiquette).  I went begrudgingly.  I tried to find reasons NOT to go.  I had almost reached the conclusion that running is dumb.  A waste of time.  Nothing really changes about my body.  I never get any faster.  It’s all an effort.  And I hurt my hip last time.  Why do I run, anyway?  There’s yoga, the bicycle, going for a stroll, Zumba.  Running is so pointless.

I had my tunes, my water bottles strapped to my waist.  I had my sports bra (because I forgot it the day before and I’m not running without it!), my favorite socks, my new running shoes (to get me motivated).  I had my new Fitbit AND my Garmin (is this all really necessary?).  I drove to my favorite park with my favorite trails.  Trail running is my favorite.  And I just started.  Again.

It wasn’t as easy this time.  The hills grew over the winter.  Like my waist-line.  My lungs shrunk.  Like my motivation.  But my hip felt good.  I ran a couple of miles and then called it quits for the day.  There was no epiphany.  I still might think that running is dumb tomorrow.  But I’m going to do it again anyway.  Because I can.  Because I’m always telling people to eat better, exercise more, manage their stress, get more sleep.  And I feel like a hypocrite when I’m not following my own advise.

And wouldn’t you know it, I saw two of my patients out there on the trail, exercising, too.  We stopped and talked.  I was a sweaty, smelly mess and the younger one pretty much told me so, “you need a shower Dr. V.”  They were getting healthier just like I encouraged them, they told me.  Isn’t that something?  Maybe the message is getting through.  Yeah, I’ll be back tomorrow.

Posted in Healthcare Today, Medical Musings, My Stories | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

The Pain of Pain

Posted on May 11, 2016 by deconstructingdoctor

_DSC0009Pain.  When I was in residency they called it the 5th vital sign.  The quantification of pain was as necessary and as important as a patient’s blood pressure, heart rate, respiratory rate and temperature.  Assess their pain.  Relieve their pain.  Make it go away.

Pain (like death) is the enemy of every good doctor and to really do your job, to be a good doctor, you must eliminate the pain.  It seemed like a good idea at the time.  The patients certainly liked it.  It made the doctors’ and nurses’ jobs easier.  Pain-free patients meant quiet and comfortable patients.  They weren’t writhing.  They weren’t screaming.

This same concept spilled over into the outpatient setting.

Pain can not be measured by a particular test or scan.  It can only be expressed by patients.  A tool has been developed to help quantify pain.  You may have seen it before.  It kind of looks like a series of pre-emoji faces.

P15001_Pain_ScaleWhat is your pain level?  On a scale from 1-10, where are you today?  Point at the series of faces that go from smiling to barfing in agony, which one most represents your level of pain?

Inevitably, the woman who walked in of her own accord, hair in place, make-up just so, even a few bangle bracelets on her arm as if she put some thought into her appearance, would answer, “I’m a 13 on the pain scale and I’m that face with the knife sticking in its eye,”  smile.

OK.  Let me explain.  A 13 is when you are lying on a train track and a train just ran over your legs.  One leg is barely attached and the other one is still stuck on the front of the train.  Are you still a 13?

No.  Now I’m a 15.

And that’s how the prescription drug problem began.  Doctors are human, that I can attest to.  Doctors have empathy.  We don’t like to see others in pain.  If a patient says that they are a 15 on a pain scale that only goes to 10, well, gosh that’s terrible and I, being the great doctor that I am, will fix it.  And be the hero.  And save the day.  And fuel an addiction.

Do people really have that kind of pain?  Um, yes.  Do people really need prescription pain medications?  Um, yes.  Do people who don’t really need prescription pain medications find ways to get them because they really like the way these drugs make them feel?  Um, unfortunately, yes.

So how does a doctor, human and empathetic, give the right people the right meds to help with their pain and not become a glorified drug dealer?  How does a doctor not continue to perpetuate a system that has resulted in 40 Americans dying every day from prescription pain medications?  There are more deaths from prescription narcotic overdoses than any other drug, legal or illegal.  Didn’t doctors take an oath to first do no harm?  I did.

In March 2016, the CDC published the CDC Guideline for Prescribing Opioids for Chronic Pain which is an attempt to help doctors treat chronic pain without harming their patients.  The guidelines are directed at primary care physicians, who prescribe about half of all pain medications in the US.  The CDC offers a common sense approach to prescribing medications for pain:

  • Use non-narcotic medications, such as anti-inflammatories to treat pain
  • When necessary, use the lowest dose narcotic to bring relief
  • Use the narcotic for the least amount of time possible, especially for acute pain -about 3 days
  • Prescribe only the amount of pills necessary
  • Use shorter acting narcotics
  • Follow up and reevaluate patients frequently -about every 3 months
  • Use other modalities to treat pain:  cognitive, behavioral, physical therapy
  • Avoid prescribing opiates and benzodiazepines together
  • Utilize urine drug screens to assess for use of medication and/or other illicit substances
  • Assess the patient’s history of addiction to evaluate risk
  • Have a treatment plan in place, discuss risks of narcotic medications with patients
  • Discuss treatment options if a patient becomes addicted (methadone or buprenorphone)

It’s a start.  It’s a direction.  It’s a lifeline.  There is no doubt that prescription pain medications have caused an epidemic of addiction, overdose, and death in this country.  Doctors are the gatekeepers of these dangerous drugs.  Drugs that in the right person, for the right affliction, can bring relief, but can be equally deadly.  It is up to doctors to yield the power of their pen to write prescription narcotics carefully and conservatively.  It is up to doctors to understand the danger that lurks in the very medication that they were once encouraged and expected to use in patients to alleviate their pain.

 

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2016/03/15/cdc-issues-new-guidelines-opiate-prescribing-reduce-abuse-overdoses/81809704/

http://www.cdc.gov/drugoverdose/prescribing/guideline.html

 

Posted in Healthcare Today, Medical News | Tagged , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Teachable Moment

Posted on May 8, 2016 by deconstructingdoctor

IMG_2449It was just one of those days.  You’ve been there before.  I know you can relate.

Rushed home from work, took the kids to the soccer game, rushed home, rushed through baths, a blur of fussing and fighting and everyone just getting on my nerves.  We had all finally settled down in the bottom bunkbed in the eldest’s room -which the youngest sleeps in and then kicks him out every night and makes him sleep in her pink/green room.  We had stopped reading the previous night around chapter 5 of one of the Captain Underpants books.  I picked up the book and started to read our favorite bedtime series to my still-too wound up children.

Let me set the scene:  George and Harold, the 9 year old heroes of the book had gotten in trouble again.  They had replaced a normal cupcake recipe with one that would ensure a science fair-like volcanic eruption.  Unbeknownst to them, the lunch ladies decided to increase the recipe 100 fold and make cupcakes for the entire student body.  After mixing the ingredients together, the result was an epic green glob that enveloped the whole school.  The lunch ladies had had enough of those boys.  The lunch ladies said, “I quit!” and collectively walked out.

I had an epiphany.  Sometimes I feel like I want to say, “I quit!”  In the moments when no one is listening to what I say, they do exactly what I said not to, they tell me “no,” act disrespectful, sassy or rude, I just want to throw my hands up in the air and say fine you win, I quit!

Now that I finally had their attention, I closed the book for a moment and said to my kids, “Hey guys, have you ever thought what would happen if mommy just said one day, I quit?”  I went on to explain that their behavior that evening was not acceptable much like George and Harold’s and sometimes I just get fed up.  Here were their answers.

  • no clean clothes
  • no food in the fridge
  • no lunches made for school
  • the house would be a mess
  • daddy would just sit on the couch all the time
  • who would clean the cat litter?
  • no books before bedtime
  • who would give us baths?
  • who would drive us to school?

And then something really weird happened.  They both started crying.  Oh shit.  That was not my intention.  I just broke my children!  It’s like when I watched Bambi at the age of 5.  Mommy’s go away?  Mommy’s die? They just pictured me dying, leaving them, abandoning them.  All I wanted was for them to realize how much I do and APPRECIATE it.  Just a little.  Show me some respect.  You know, just a little more.

And by the way, I really don’t do ALL of that.  I have a mom, a dad, mother and father in law, and my husband.  They do A LOT.  I just try to take all the credit.  And use it to guilt my children into behaving, but maybe I ended up feeling a little guilty myself.

 

Posted in My Stories | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments