Lately

A fellow "momcologist" posted on Facebook that her son had packed his own meds for an overnight stay with a friend. He's 13, and I was surprised and delighted that he was able to do this himself. I have no idea when children take responsibility for their own medication and kind of assumed that I would be putting an oral syringe in Eleanor's mouth til she turned 18. 

Until today. 

I prepped Eleanor's afternoon steroid so I could give it to her right when she woke up from a long nap. It was a little late, so I tried to get it in her as fast as possible. After Eleanor woke up, she waved me away in her cranky, post-nap haze, so I left it on the ottoman and went to get her a snack. When I came back in, I found this:

No big deal, right?? A depressed syringe where there was once medication. The question is, where did the meds go? I tasted the water, and there was no weird taste to it. I asked Eleanor "did you take your meds?" And she enthusiastically responded "meds!" Not super helpful. I'm 99% sure she took them, but what if she didn't? It's much better to err on the side of caution with her meds, so I gave it again. 

We are seeing this more and more in her. Her desire to assert herself and show she can do things all by herself. I knew this stage would come, in fact I welcomed it after having her so dependent and babyish for so long, but it is definitely not in the way I expected. We went for a walk with some friends the other day. I brought the double stroller because I was sure she wouldn't last long. She was wearing her rainboots and she struggles to walk in them (don't we all? Just me? Ok.) and she gets very distracted on walks. We trekked around 3km and she had a few moments where she needed to be carried (the tree roots tripped her up a lot), but she REFUSED the stroller. Her two little buddies took quick turns in it but Eleanor didn't want anything to do with it.

Eleanor is also refusing proper outdoor clothing...

And now she won't go in the stroller at all. It's a little frustrating as I need to use the stroller for dog walks! We spent the past two days fighting over it and finally I just went to a dog AND kid friendly park where nobody needed to be contained. 

We are prepping for a couple of trips to Vancouver in the coming weeks. The first is for her dental work, which is filling me with dread. It's just an 'unknown' procedure so I don't know how her body will react. I've planned for an extra night just in case things go sideways. Which they won't. Right? Ugh. The second trip is for her PET scan. It's scheduled for the day after her birthday, which means we will be spending her "happy day" in appointments prepping for the scan. I would have changed it, but it's been six months since her last one and I'm pretty ready to know what's going on inside her. It just means we will have to throw her a little party between trips :-)

Girlfriend loves a party!

It can be pretty hard to say no to this face. Especially when this face says small sentences or exclaims "eye doctor!" when we drive past her ophthalmologist's office. As my parenting ideas and instincts change with this new little big girl, I always wonder how different I would approach things if she hadn't gotten sick. I sometimes feel like my tank of parenting skills is ruptured, and it drains faster than it should. My patience is less and my anxiety runs higher than I would like. Who knows? Maybe I would have been this way anyways. I think about it a lot. Our life is so normal in so many ways, but we are still broken, still damaged. Parenting is hard, but we keep plugging on. Eleanor teaches us so much every day and is plowing forward, urging us all along in her wake!

Super nerd. 

Edited to add:

I'm 99.9% sure she took her meds herself. She was exceptionally sweaty and energetic last night and partied in her crib til 9:30. She is back to normal today :-)