If anyone somehow wanders over to this blog from one of her sites, hello. This blog is still public, but tends to be rambley and personal, so not really good to share widely.
In my last post here, I recorded that Phoebe threw up before her shot, but that thankfully has not happened again. In fact, Phoebe has been showing her mastery of the shot night routine by recreating it in her play. She has a "script" or schema that she follows--- you get the shot, you cry a little bit, and then you get a hug or a bandaid.
Shot Night with Foxes.... an alternative to Dances With Wolves? Ha ha. Phoebe gave the baby fox a shot. He cried and then got a hug from his Mama. She then gave the Mama fox a shot. I had just gotten my flu shot that day. I can't remember for certain, but I think she may have given the baby a shot in the leg, and the mama a shot in her arm, which would have been 100% accurate attention to details. But I can't be sure.
Cordelia was sick with strep. She had a fever and threw up on the way home from the Renaissance Fair. Poor C, she didn't get to enjoy the fair, while Phoebe had a blast. Cordelia did not have a sore throat, but after she threw up 5 times, I took her to urgent care in the morning. She seemed to be feeling better and was chatty with the doctor, so it was a surprise to both him and me when the rapid strep test came back positive! I thought I was being overly cautious, but it was worth it because we were able to put her on antibiotics immediately and no one else in the house got sick. Win. Poor kid, she was super sick. In the video she was saying she was going to take a nap, and she actually did! You know Cordelia is sick, as she stopped napping 2 years ago!!
Here is another example of Phoebe doing Shot Night Play. This is my second video of her attempt. At first she said "Bee" and got the buzzy bee. Then she adorably announced " 'hot. 'hot." as she can't say "shot." She also said "poke" and "DONE!" She put on the bandaid, but then immediately said "off" and took it off. That video goes on for too long though because Phoebe couldn't figure out how to turn off the bee at first and it just keeps buzzing, really loud and annoying. After that, she reeenacted it again, which resulted in this video. She is calm and efficient. "Done!" I love how matter of fact she is about it.
Anyway, these videos really show you how smart Phoebe is and how amazingly well I think she's processed what happens to her. Phoebe is apprehensive about going to the hospital tomorrow though. She has said "poke?" sadly, several times. I am trying to reassure her that I will be with her the whole time and try to remind her of the other fun stuff we will get to do, like see the trains and watch Elmo. Phoebe said "dog," but I don't have the heart to tell her the dog won't come to the Bass Center. Boooo.
I am very much looking forward to seeing Dr. B! Hopefully we will be getting a good report on Phoebe's joints. She has also been in touch with me this week and sent me a link about being a parent representative for Stanford for the group Pediatric Rheumatology Care and Outcomes Improvement Network (PR-COIN). So I will learn more about that tomorrow.
Moving on to a separate issue, Cordelia has been dwelling a lot on death again, and it's kind of hard. She hasn't asked if Phoebe is going to die lately, but she is going through another mourning period of missing our cat that died a year and a half ago. We went to a very fun Harry Potter potions party, but Cordelia became sad and said that she wanted to make a potion that would bring dead things back to life. And that maybe Willow wasn't really dead, she was just sleeping and we could un-burry her, etc. I tried hard to just say that being dead was just kind of like resting, you don't have to do anything or go anywhere or be worried about anything. But once you're dead, you stay dead. (And I also believe that once you're dead, you're probably ok with staying dead.... bringing people back is always a mistake, whether it's Buffy.... Fulll Metal Alchemist.... never goes well. ha ha.)
Cordelia has also been bringing up when Jason or I are going to die and if she'll be with us, and kind of wrestling with the idea of how sad it would be to be without your parents. Jason is of course, kind of blunt, "well, no one knows when they will die...." but I am just trying to reassure her that we all are going to live a long time and will all be together and see her grow up and see her future kids grow up (she wants kids) and that she is taken care of. Anyway, it's not all the time, but she will still occasionally say things slightly weird things like "I'll love you forever, until we die," so I guess she is just internalizing her mortality or something. I guess the hardest part is that it makes me wish I *had* told her some version of Heaven or spirits can live on, etc, just for something more comforting. But I firmly don't believe in losing kids in euphemisms ("they're in a better place"), and was direct with her when we talked about death before, but now it just feels harsh to my own ears that she is also speaking about it so directly. Obviously she has questions and probably some anxiety about it, I hope I'm doing my best to help her understand and feel secure. I'm not sure what exactly I was told as a kid. I definitely had some notion of heaven, not sure from where. As an adult, I kind of have an undefined view--- nobody knows, so it's not really worth worrying about, but more likely than not, it's just an end. I'd like Cordelia to have that rationale too, but at the same time can see how she'd miss the comfort of a story/belief like Heaven....I wish I had some deeper and more profound conclusion to bring to the end of this paragraph, but really, I just don't know what's best psychologically and hope I said things that make sense to her.
As I said, this blog tends to ramble, especially as it approaches midnight. You can probably tell I'm tired and not looking forward to tomorrow. I'm going by myself, which I'm fine with, but at the same time it is harder just mentally preparing for it. It's getting easier, but at the same time it's still hard. I mean, do you really get used to this?
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