parenting moments

There have been a few times over the last few weeks where I have laughed and said out loud or thought to myself “Oh. Well THATs a parenting moment”. First was last week when on a snowy into rainy day we decided to take all of the kids grocery shopping out of desperation to get out of our house after too many days cooped up inside. I didn’t know that on the trip over, Jack had undid the velcro on his sneakers so that when I held Marlowe in my arms and held Jack’s hand to walk from the car to the line of wet carts. I ignored his little voice say “my feet are cold” thinking that he was just complaining. But when he said “my feet are wet” I looked down to see him standing in his socks, feet submerged in a slushy puddle. A parenting moment.
Tom put the baby back in the car and Jack was happy as a clam to sit in the front seat of the car and play with the blinkers, radio and inside lights and pretend to drive and have my undivided attention while Tom took Marlowe inside to grab the essentials (milk, bread, beer, donuts).
Another moment was Tom’s when we were with Jack, Marlowe and Kit in the waiting room of the doctors office and Jack announced “I have a poop”. Tom took both kids into the bathroom to find there was no changing table (in a pediatrician’s office… really?). So he had Jack bend over and touch his toes while he cleaned him up. And Marlowe decided that this was a good time to hold on to the sink basin and run her tongue along it (in a pediatrician’s office… really?!!!). As if we weren’t germ infested enough. A parenting moment.
But no parenting moment felt like the one I didn’t expect this week. I am on night two of sleeping in a chair next to my 3 week old son’s crib at the old St. Vincent’s Hospital. I watch him cry for the long 7 minutes it takes to blow the infant nebulizer in his face every 4 hours. And I listen to him breathe like a man who has smoked unfiltered Camel’s for 50 years. He has the virus many kids have, but in a 3 week old it is a much more serious thing and they want to keep a close eye on him. We may go home tomorrow, maybe the next day. The twins are with Tom and family is helping out with them.
A “parenting moment” I guess is one where you feel that your abilities as a parent are tested to the limit, or a moment where the insanity of the situation would lead you to cry or laugh so as not to cry. It is a moment of love felt for your child as they say or do something filled with innocence. It is a moment where we put a note in the margin’s or highlight with a fluorescent marker to recall again in later years when we can look back and laugh. It is a moment in your relationship where you look at each other and feel a bonding because you are sharing it. Or it is a moment where you feel complete fear as a parent as you feel yourself failing miserably at it. But, there is really no other “parenting moment” comparable to watching your child suffer and being helpless to do anything about it.
I listen to Kit cough his wet gooey coughs and wish I could cough for him. And I feel bad that his first days on this planet had to include any suffering outside of his wet diapers. Instead of watching hours of snowy reception TV or either one of the two videos in this room’s extensive VHS library: Bugs Bunny episodes or Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon in Concert (Lay-zers!)… I opt to listen to Kit breathe with the fluorescent overhead off, while nurses chat at their station and parents walk their bored and restless kids up and down the hallway of the Pediatrics floor, the wheels of their IV stands scraping against the Linoleum. And I think to myself how thankful I am to have had these 26 days with him so far, and the 9 months before that that we shared intimately for that matter. Maybe the first parenting moment with Kit was when Tom and I went in for the first ultrasound and felt more nervous then hopeful, and then looked at each other with relief that there was no bad news. We knew as experienced parents that had been through it all recently how much of it is out of our control. For Kit and Jack & Marlowe I am able to make decisions that affect them in small and in profound ways. And I do not take that for granted. Thankfully Tom and I make decisions together pretty easily and trust each other’s parenting completely. The little decisions and embarassing, comical, stressful, beautiful or sweet parenting moments make us fall in love deeper with our family, but it is when the harshest decisions have to be made that the parenting moments will most define us as parents.
There has been two times when I wanted to get my older daughter medical help that I thought she needed but was unable to legally because I have joint custody of her. It was and still is the source of all of my anger; seeing my child suffer and feeling helpless to help her. It is the cruelest thing one parent can do to another. And the act of denying a parent access help for their child was no where more prevalent than in the Emergency Room waiting room. I only had to walk through it the other night on the way up to our room. We are part of the lucky few with insurance. The waiting room was packed and every pipe and draped off section occupied. Many parents were there with their very sick kids looking desperate to be seen, waiting for hours. I do not understand how some people think that we have the best health care in this country because anyone can walk into the ER. That is not acceptable health care. It is neglect.
Kit is going to be fine, he is on the mend and he will be back to his usual self again, that guy we all know who doesn’t get out of his PJ’s and who smirks and laughs when he sleeps as if he has a sense of humor already. His family is at home waiting for him to say and do all of those things that we will remind him of when he is older and has kids of his own maybe. I look forward to sleeping in my own bed again too. They should have a chiropractor make the rounds for the parents sleeping on the chairs around here. I miss Jack and Marlowe, and Ruby of course. But I spend half of her childhood missing her so its a familiar feeling there. I am sure it is awfully strange for them to have us gone too. I look forward to being greeted by all of their smiling faces. Marlowe wearing an apron serving me a plastic frying pan with a plastic strawberry and plastic fried egg inside, Jack wearing just a diaper, and his fireman hat dancing and DJing on his boom box, and Ruby with her head in her computer facebooking sitting on my big white living room chair (yes, I have 2 year olds and a white chair, don’t ask me what I was thinking) wearing mismatched socks and too much eyeliner and is complaining about her braces that were just tightened. They are there, waiting for us, frozen in time in my mind, as we are stuck in this hospital room. Hours run into each other, and night and day are blended together. And we wait for all of the moments to begin again.