serendipity

Just call me David Blaine

Scene: Juju and I, waiting for Cassandre to get her rubber bands replaced at the orthodontist.

Juju "What number am I thinking of?"

Me, looking at her fingers "Four."

Juju "Grrrr! Okay what color am I thinking of?"

Me, remembering the red shirt she just brought home from camp today "Red."

Juju, scowling "Huh! What letter am I thinking of?"

Me "L!" (for letter, of course)

Juju, with a big, confused scowl on her face, "How did you KNOW that? What am thinking of NOW?"

Me "You're thinking about what you can think about that I won't know."

Juju "YES!"

 

 

 

Strappy sandals

She wants me to go with her to the ladies room. We don't hold hands and she walks ahead of me, but she is not quite ready to go to a strange bathroom by herself.  She still wants her mama.

We enter the stalls side by side. Now eleven, she is too grown up to share one with me. I can see her shoes under the dividing wall. White, strappy sandals with just the right amount of bling. Silver paint that looks like rhinestones.

I look at her feet, they are getting so big. She needed new sneakers the other day and we found out exactly how big: she's a size 4.

Only one and half sizes away.

Not from me, I'm a seven and a half, but one and half sizes from being able to shop in the big girl shoe department. My department. I know exactly how she feels because when I was her age, maybe even before I was her age, I felt the same way. Lusting after the big girl shoes.

The big girl shoe department is the Emerald City of department stores. Everything there is beautiful. High heels. Strappy sandals. Boots. Leather that smells deliciously grown up. Nothing that can be tied with laces, or more currently, nothing with velcro (the kids don't tie much anymore).

I look at her feet under the stall. Her pedicure, the one her grandmother gave her, has grown out, and her toenails are a little too long and slightly ragged. Shod in her strappy white sandals her feet look a little ambiguous. The shoes and the size are at a stage where it's not obvious: is she a child trying to be a grown up or is she a woman with dicey taste in shoes?

I know the truth of course, but she would love the idea that others might not know. That they might mistake her for a woman. She wants to pass. Not because boys or men would notice her (she hates boys and men make her uncomfortable) but because she wants to be big. She thinks she's ready for more even if she's not clear about more of what. Truthfully, she's not even sure why it's important to be big. It just is.

I understand this and I try not to do anything to dissuade her feelings. We walk casually by Emerald City together and I let her dream, just like I still dream, but not for too long. I'm not ready yet, it is too soon. I want to hold her hand. I want to take her hand and go upstairs to the little girl shoe department. I revel in the (increasingly rare) moments when she curls up into my lap like a child and holds on to my waist with both hands. For now we walk casually and we point out the shoes we dream of and won't buy today. 

These are the in-between days. They won't last nearly as long as I want them to.

I have one and a half sizes left.

Dog Tired

It started with a low grade fever which I'm sure most people could handle just fine. I mean what's not to handle? It's not like it was a big fever, it was a little fever. The kind of little fever that would not keep me from sending my kids to school (bad mother). I, on the other hand, have a tendency to become a whining, apathetic child with even the mildest of fevers. Fever makes my skin hurt. My muscles hurt. My eyes burn. I can't focus. I can't think. I can only sleep. But I tried to work anyway, 'cause it's not like I was sick, I just had a stupid fever. So I worked, and I became cranky. Even more cranky than usual.

Two days later I could barely hold up my head, which was lightheaded. I could barely get out of bed. When I did get out of bed I couldn't stay out for very long. I took naps. Long ones. And I woke up feeling just as tired as when I went to bed, which made me, unbelievably, even more cranky. The promise of a nap is that you will wake up feeling  better.

Ha.

By day four I was ready for professional help and my definition of "professional" was wide open - a witch doctor would have been perfectly acceptable, provided they promised a return to my former energetic self. Luckily I had landed the ever elusive insurance policy and could visit a real doctor. Not my doctor of course. He was not on duty that day, the day I gave in. This was a random clinic doctor, and she was, of course, 12 years old. I say random as if I wasn't going to the Palo Alto clinic, a clinic with a great reputation and ties to Stanford Hospital. My 12 year-old doctor was perfectly competent and spent a lot of time with me, none of this rush rush, here's a pill, nonsense you sometimes hear about. "Virus," she said. "Not Swine, but you knew that. Go to bed. And get these tests done. And while you're there, get the other tests your doctor told you to take 3 months ago..."

The blood tests (they were almost all blood tests, of course) required five vials, and those vials were the last things I allowed myself to see at the lab. I put on my headphones and said in my nicest, calmest voice to the lab technician, "I have been known to faint and once I went into convulsions. I probably won't do that today, but I am going to lay down. I have some music and I'm not going look at what you're doing. Oh, and I may cry (did I mention I was hormonal? Bonus points!)" I felt sorry for the guy, getting stuck with me (no pun intended), but he performed his duty flawlessly. I felt the tiniest prick in my arm, then nothing. I have no idea how he switched the vials without me feeling anything, and I had this nightmare fantasy of him piercing the needle through my vein (arm) as he changed vials repeatedly...but miracle of miracles, nothing bad happened. I stayed horizontal for a little longer than usual, just to make sure I was okay. 

I was super happy/proud not to have fainted. So happy that I thought I would use up the last of my energy to go to the pharmacy and pick up my supersized motrin - the only meds deemed to be useful against (the symptoms of) the virus. I was only at the counter for a few minutes when the bees came. I looked up at the pharmacist, handed him my credit card and said "I think I'm going to faint, I need to sit down now." I went quickly to the chairs and put my head down between my knees. Miraculously I was able to hold on and frankly I think it was my fear of embarrassment that won the day. The idea of fainting in Walgreens was just too much. The pharmacist brought me some water, charged my card and handed me my meds. After a little while I felt I could drive the 3 miles to my house and so I did. Should I have driven myself? Perhaps not, but I really, really really wanted to be in bed. It was a siren call. Irresistible.

Since then I've followed this pattern: wake up, take the kids to school, do a little work, go back to bed to take a long nap. Eat a late lunch, pick the kids up from school (sometimes), take another long nap. Go to bed early. Sleep is my mantra. I cannot get enough of it, even though it does not seem to make a difference. 

Honestly, I don't recognize myself. I can barely put together a sentence, typing is hard and I've started to worry that I will never get my energy back. But I need to chase consulting gigs, I need to be myself again. Now. 

Over the weekend, the last blood test came back positive for human Parvovirus. A kid's disease. One that is supposedly pretty mild. Except in the rare cases when it lasts too long, attacks your joints and pretends to be arthritis. Which is where I think I'm at now. My joints hurt so much I feel like I'm 90. Oh, I almost forgot, over the weekend I woke up with the most amazing rash all over my body and I still have it today. Sexy, itchy chicken skin. With flakes. Yum!

I had never heard of human parvovirus. I had previously only heard of it in dogs and it was one of those diagnoses that terrified me. Canine parvovirus can be fatal and as dog owner I had learned to fear it. Apparently the two strains have little in common and do not cross over - which means that Gringo didn't give this to me, and I can't give it to him. In fact I can't give it to anyone anymore. Now that I have the (awful, itchy, flaking, torturous) rash, the infectious period is officially over, which is good even if it doesn't make me feel better (nope, apparently this is not true, I'm still a plague carrier). I have another doctor's appointment tomorrow and the goal is to figure out what, if anything other than that awful and predictable answer "time," is going to make me feel like myself again. Because I can't stay like this, in bed, forever, or months more as some of the med sites say could be the case.

And yes, I do recognize that I'm being a whiny brat. But hey, if I can't be a whiny brat in my blog, where can I be? ;-)