We survived!

Jimmy as General MacArthur

It's been a long. long weekend. Thursday morning, my little man started complaining of a headache. I pretty much ignored that because his first 10yr molar is coming in. Instead, I tossed him a tube of ambesol and told him to drink a glass of water.

By mid-day, his temperature had risen, and I sent him to bed. I took him to the pediatrician the next day after his temperature registered at 102.6. "It's just a virus," they said. "Keep an eye on him."

Ok. I took him home, gave him a corner of the couch, and a bottle of water, and waited
.

Saturday night, his aches turned into pains, and he couldn't really walk well or climb his ladder to bed. The pains seemed to be coming from his lower right side, and he miserably failed the "jump-up-and-down" test, so we went to the ER. Jim and I texted furiously the whole time and he kept me cheery in the face of not knowing what was going on with Jimmy.


The poked, prodded, hooked up an IV, checked vitals, drew blood, took urine, filled him with contrast, scanned, poked and prodded again. "It's just a virus," they said. "Keep an eye on him."

Ok. It's 2 AM on a Sunday and I have to be at church by 7:30/8. Sure. Why not.

Jimmy spent Sunday quarantined in Jim's office, and seemed to be getting better. Fever was down to 100.3 that morning, and his appetite was back. Abdominal pain was pretty much gone, and his spirits were high.


After church and lunch and naps, he said he felt much better and asked me to check his temperature. 103.7. Oh, good heavens. Took it again. 103.4. Jim told me it would be ok. Much muttering of "What do we do now?" ensued.

I did what any self-respecting, intelligent, mother of 2 older kids would do. I called my mommy. I told her the whole story. I did my best not to cry. (It sort of worked.) She told me it would be ok, and suggested that - since I'd tried everything else - I should put him in a tub of lukewarm water for 5 minutes and douse him, hair and all, then bundle him back up.

When the 5 minutes were done, Jim went up to get him out of the tub, then came down and said that he was a new kid. And he was! He was smiles and appetite again. He ate (a tiny) dinner and felt playful. I gave him one more dose of medicine for the fever and sent him to bed.

This morning, I handed him the thermometer and held my breath. 98.5. Hooray! We made it!

The mystery virus lost.

Hi, John!

Time for installment 2 of this irregularly serial series! Time to meet another influential person from my life. Today's person: John.


John was my first love. (The first that I remember, anyway.)

I don't know his last name, but we went to church together at the Bible Baptist Church in Leslie. Here it is:

There are two things that I remember about John. One is that we went to church together. The other is that he liked spinach. (Who wouldn't love him, right?)

I don't know why I liked John. I don't know if he was nice, cute, polite, or any combination thereof. I just know we were in Sunday School together and he liked spinach. I know this because our Sunday School class had a party, and I took a can of spinach FOR THE PARTY because it was John's favorite.

That's dedication right there, people. Dedication. Devotion. Obsession, perhaps.

Well, that's my entire memory of John. So why does he make the list? Because that memory tells me something about myself. I was willing to do something for someone I -ahem- "loved" even though it almost surely meant that I would be ridiculed. Why? Because others' happiness is important! And if I can make someone else happy, I sure am going to try to do it.

So thanks, John. Thanks for waking that up in me. I owe you one.

God's love

Here's a thought to rattle around in your head for a while.

In Kidmo today, Johnny showed a guy watering a garden with a hose and said, "You see that hose? That's regular love."

Then he showed a clip of Niagara, with the water thundering over the falls, and said, "You see that? That's God's love."