Bowling and Shots

It is so wonderful to be finished with writing papers...I get to be a mom again.

Tuesday I tried to do Christmas shopping, but couldn't seem to find anything for anyone that was satisfactory. I give up and go get Turner from school early. I had a coupon (of course!) for free bowling, so we go bowling...just the two of us. I underestimated how much energy bowling would take.

When we get there it is all black and the disco lights and blacklights are bright. Turner keeps pointing out the disco lights and telling me the colors. We secure lane 29 and are surrounded on both sides by very, very serious men who must be in some sort of league. They were less than patient with our junior bowler. Turner and I grab a bright pink ball and neon yellow ball. I forget to ask the guys to put the bumpers up, but I figure 'heck this will be fun anyway, right?' No. Five stuck balls later, the guys put the bumpers up.

Turner gets very independent and decides he must bowl alone. Many more balls become stranded on the lane. The league guy next to me offers me some "advice" and says Turner is awfully small so shouldn't I "help" him...I told him to tell Turner that. I laughed. The guy didn't. So I tried to help Turner push the balls down the lane from then on. We still got one or two stuck, but we pushed them out of the wall...kind of like playing pool. At one point I thought the ball was close enough so I would just stretch really far and give the ball some extra incentive down the lane. Of course the lanes are well-greased, and I was not paying attention to the sign. I slid, on my hands and knees a little way down the lane. I recovered nicely though and think I did a decent job playing it off. Turner, of course, yelled at me and asked, "You ok Mommy? You fall down."

In another trip down another lane, I try to catch a ball that Turner throws down the lane of the guys next to us. It was as though I stole their baby. Even the wives, who were eating pizza and playing on their own lane, snickered and huffed about kids not behaving anymore. I thought Turner was listening nicely. I never explained to him to stay away from the other lanes. Once I did, he stuck to his lane. The league guys are very irritated at us because they won't throw their ball while we are standing at the line watching ours creep down the lane. All I can do is laugh and Turner is jumping and screaming anytime he knocks pins down. We actually got two spares and one strike!

Turner has a cough and it has intensified this week. We go to a new pediatrician yesterday morning. Three hours later, we are actually facing the doctor who tells us that the cough is not a cold but asthma. Every four hours he must use his inhaler again. He hasn't napped all week because of the cough. Now he can't really nap because the inhaler makes his heart race. You look at his eyes and he is so sleepy. I feel terrible for him. Dr. Hull almost requires me to give him a flu shot by scaring me with stories of asthmatic kids who get the flu. Now, as a result of the flu shot, we must add a runny nose and congestion to the cough and breathing treatments. When the nurse comes in to give him the shot, she asks him to divert his attention and look at me. I tell her he is much too inquisitive for that. He asks what it is. She says, "Oh just a little poke." I say, "It is a magic potion that will keep you from getting the flu." He looks at the needle. "Wow," he says. "It will hurt when she touches your skin with it, but then the potion will go into your arm and it will stop hurting almost as fast as it started." We are working on trust so I ask him to trust me and he says OK.

I pull up his sleeve. The nurse offers him the blue sucker he's been asking for since we walked in the door. I hold his hand. The nurse rubs alcohol on his arm. I tell Turner to look at me. He does. He smiles. He looks back at the nurse. She pushes the needle into his arm. He jerks his eyes to mine. When he looks back, the nurse is removing the needle and talking kindly to him. He looks at me again and crocodile tears fill his eyes. "What a brave boy you are, Turner. Can you feel the magic?" He smiles. Tears never fall. "I feel it Mommy. It is making me all better so we can go to Tenkucky." He hasn't mentioned the shot since then. I figured it would be a big story to tell Andy, but he didn't mention it to him. Perhaps he is too exhausted to remember anything.

See you all SOON!