Perception

Perception is a wondrous thing. In the end our memory and feelings toward a situation can be swayed by what our perception was at the time. In actuality our afternoon and early evening sucked eggs. BUT thanks to perception I am going to re-engineer my afternoon into something more palatable, more enjoyable, more funny. Possible? I dunno.

Today I picked the boys up early from school, they were pretty stoked about early dismissal from school this morning so I figured "piece of cake". Sometimes I am just so flat out wrong. Cameron came down the hall first, he was super ticked off that I made him miss math. Oh the love of learning!!! No? He likes to go to math because his is in an included classroom for that subject and there is a little 9 year old hottie who won his heart when she told him, "you can talk as much as you want, Cam, I like you anyway." It makes the heart flutter, does it not? Anyway, Cam is ticked. Adam comes down the hall and takes off at a dead run for his mom tackle hug only to be headed off by his brother with a clean take down to the linoleum floor. Ouch! I did not see that one coming!! We start to head toward the door only to encounter another parent coming to pick up his daughter, she is sick :( Cam says, " I know her! She smells like strawberries!" The Dad looks at Cam sideways and mutters, "what? I don't think she does. Does she". And I shuffle the boys out to the van. 

[Aside: Poor Dad, boys are going to think your adorable daughter smells like peaches, strawberries, flowers, etc. Start collecting shot guns now. She really was cute.]

Now arriving! Two Harris boys reporting to the allergist, ma'am! I should have known it would be a difficult appointment as soon as Cam started going through my bag for his DS and Adam went on the hunt for his new Lego Star Wars books. I'll cop to the fact that I totally bought those for him because I knew his scratch test was going to suck mightily. There are seven chairs in the waiting room and my two boys managed to take up five of them. I fill out paperwork and collect the boys and their belongings and fit the whole lot of us into three chairs to await the nurse. Short wait thankfully, we are shown into an exam room where the boys did their spread out and conquer thing again and made a general racket while I attempted to tell the nurse the reason for our interruption of her previously quiet afternoon.

Rash on Cam's ankle post allergy injection is apparently NOT allergy but dermatology with bad timing. Okaaaayyyy. Apply ointment 2x per day and follow up with dermatology if it gets worse. Cam's appointment is then put on hold. 

Adam's persistent cough could be allergy or asthma. No wheezing in the past, no other symptoms, probably allergy, lets do a scratch test. I figured this would be the outcome thus the purchase of new Lego inspired reading material. Now when Cam had his scratch test last month, I was prepared. He is super easy to distract with the combination of time plus any electronic screen. Enter Nintendo DS and every single game we own. Adam is not so easy. Even with new books he was NOT going to passively lay around with 20 pin pricks on his back itching like the very devil. (*sweet voice*) Oh dear Autism Mom, use a visual timer. Now that he can watch the time pass, he will be far more easy to contain. HA! (*real life voice*) Lunatic Autism Mom, you will now have to put a vise grip hold on his wrists or he will grab at his skin, mix all the allergy serums up and then we'll never know to what he's allergic!  Hold tight but remain calm because remember, it's up to me to get him through the longest 20 minutes of his life to date. Talking nonsense about Star Wars didn't cut it, asking about his day either, finally I took to blowing on his back. He got up onto his knees (I'm still holding his wrists) and I said, "how do you want me to blow?" And he said, "this big!" holding his arms out wide. So I blew in his face and he said, "NO! Blow again." This time as soon as I took a deep breath he dove down onto his stomach so I couldn't possibly miss his back. I lost my deep breath in a fit of laughter and we proceeded to continue our Vaudeville act for another 5 minutes. Timer goes off and we do a happy dance to celebrate the fact that we don't have to live those 15 minutes ever again.  Nurse comes in, does a big suck breath, calls the doctor and dang it all if Adam isn't allergic to MORE things than Cameron!

Cam's appointment is taken off hold because now it is time for the allergy shots that he detests more than anything in the world. He starts flailing wildly and yelling and Lunatic Autism Mom steps in to capture wrists and arms once again. Nurse comes closer to Cam with the needles and Adam take a flying leap towards her yelling, "don't shot my brother!" Insert evil Mommy 'shut up' stare, Cam gets his shots, cries and we head out to the (now full) waiting room for the 30 minute post shot 'will he have a reaction?' waiting period. Somehow 6 people filling up the waiting room makes absolutely no noise and Cam's Lego Rock Band DS game screams into the silence plus he is still sniffling and saying, "shots are evil" (thanks so much Phineas & Ferb) and falling into a never ending cycle of scripting cell phone commercials. No reactions and we head for home. The End. 

Day fixed thanks to changing my perception of the situation! Of course to do so, I had to delete the part where Adam kicked the nurse in the shin, Cameron actually tripping the doctor because was laying spread eagle on the floor, the parents in the waiting room looked at me like a bad mom because to couldn't control my kids, my 50 sincere apologies to the doctor and nurse that I don't think they fully accepted, 3 new prescriptions to add to our increasingly long list that I can barely keep track of now, 2 follow up visits and 3 possible new consults to dermatology, ENT and surgical (SCARY!). I think for tonight I'll eat raw cookie dough (even though the package says not to and I'm sure some dietary police will throw me in the clink), watch Glee and enjoy the alternate reality that changing my perception has afforded me.