Resilience

My family and I had a wonderful vacation out West.  Along with the wide-open spaces and exploring the natural beauty God has blessed us with, were some observations about my loved ones.  When it comes to friends or family, nothing says learning more than spending 5 days in a row of early mornings, full days and late nights...

Sometimes it can seem like a pre-schooler is a bipolar person.  There are highs and there are lows and they can be interspersed pretty close together.  A temper tantrum can become laughter and laughter can quickly devolve into unexplainable crying.  It's an emotional roller coaster there is no medicine for.  It was a reminder to me that controlling emotions is a learned and practiced ability and not an innate expectation.  As I tried to keep my cool with my son's unpredictable changes, I was reminded of the fact that many adults can't keep it together either.  Hopefully my steadfast patience would lead to a well-conditioned, even tempered adult.  In an interesting irony, on our flight back home I kept getting kicked in the back of my chair repetitively.  As I tried to avoid the evil glares I wanted to shoot back, I thought, "well, maybe it's an autistic young kid, or a small child that doesn't know better."  I tried to be understanding and offer it up.  I was somewhat surprised to learn when I got off it was a perfectly normal looking woman who was my age or older.  Well- we never know anyone's story and if I'm going to teach my son to be patient and not judge- the buck stops here...

Back to learning a little more about my son.  We had a Monday with a wonderful hike (which my son actually walked the whole 2.75 miles until a stumble and a nose bleed which I will write about next week).  Then Tuesday came and we were all set to head north to a beautiful town with a lake and my husband was looking forward to exploring the town with us.  Unfortunately, not even 5 miles away from our start, my son got sick.  We are talking fairly epic, clear the car out sick.  Ironically, I had to get lab work, and I asked the lab worker for a bag to put the soiled clothes into- she gave me a giant red biohazard bag- couldn't be more appropriate.  My husband and I tried to figure out how sick my son was.

This can sometimes be hard to reason with a four year old.  How sick are you?  You look sick, but was that just a passing thing, or the beginning of something more?  My son told us he wanted to go on with the planned trip, but obviously some modifications and a trip to Walmart needed to be made.

New shirt, shorts, socks, soda and wipes were purchased.  I also made a trip down the pet aisle and told my husband I was looking for a litter box so if he got sick again the rental car would hopefully not take the full brunt force.  The litter boxes were a little expensive and fancy for the purpose I was looking for, but I found a animal feed tub and it seemed to suit.  There was a clerk stocking shelves in the aisle and I can still remember her face as she heard me ask my son, "So- you think you could puke in that if you have to."  Yes- a little crude, but to the point.

We made it up to our destination and parked at the city beach.  My son was happy and I told my husband he would have to eat lunch alone and then bring me some, because I was confident taking our son to a restaurant would be a bad idea for all involved.  My son, my little sick boy was soon running around the beach, trying to take his shoes and socks off and walk in the lake which was COLD.  We were not far from the Canadian border and he just wanted to be in the cold water.  I tried to play along as I imagined the cold water probably felt good to him.  He played for hours.  We even built a sand castle (a couple of times, as I found out he prefers to destroy sand castles more than building them).  I even found out that the feed bin doubled up as a great sand castle builder.

My son and I could have easily written the day off as a day of sickness and just staying in a hotel room- but instead I actually got a day at the beach at a beautiful mountain lake- can't ask for much better than that.  My son was soon hungry and stated he wanted pizza- we avoided that and we avoided further illness and my son taught me that even though he can be very whiny and demanding- he can also buck it up and have a great time- kind of like his mommy, I guess.