“i have a right to take a sh*t!” he said, in a volume and tone that was a tad notch stronger than i liked.
but you have the moral obligation to hurry up!, i replied in my head, as well as a whole bunch of other arguments deemed worthy in an ethics class. but i couldn’t get the words out. like clumsy people bumping into objects in front of them, i find that i always trip and stumble with the words that are right at the tip of my tongue. so i just glared at him, let my eyes do the talking. they said, you gotta be f%cking kidding me.
it was 8:30 in the morning. we were scheduled to see raven’s bone doctor. her appointment was at 8:30. my blood pressure was high and my blood sugar low from running around and getting everyone ready just so we could all be there on time. raven woke up at the last minute so that meant milo cereal on the go for her. yep, i know. mother of the year award.
i wonder how mothers with 5 kids ever get out of the house at all. i’m struggling and i only have one husband.
raven sort of fractured her right lower leg two weeks prior. nothing biggie, except that she couldn’t really put her weight on that leg and always insisted on sitting down while bossing us around to bring her her toys after she must have slipped and fell on the lounge room floor.
must have, because jeff and i were in the kitchen when it happened. we kind of just put the pieces of the puzzle together — tears, tiny body lying on the bamboo flooring, a piece of mandarin and a lot of mess comprised mainly of toys somewhere close by — and relayed the information to her physio the next day who decided to put a splint on her calf to keeps things nice and steady for the next 14 days before they see her again for her follow-up checkup.
toddler’s fracture. never even heard of that before and i’m a nurse. but then again, i’m also probably the kind of nurse you wouldn’t wanna consult with regards to your cardiac health by asking me to read your echocardiogram for you. but if you wanna know specific details on what actually goes down during a colonoscopy procedure, this sister has got you covered.
her walking around the house with her splint on was so sad but at the same time, it was so cute! of course, it looked worse than it actually was and my parents were freaking out over it, calling me on viber and giving me instructions on upping her calcium intake and making sure that she doesn’t climb on furniture and stairs and why the heck am i not giving her formula milk?!
this kid is so well-loved. she truly is.
when everything was said and done, the bone doc gave her an all-clear. said the fracture, if that, was so tiny to begin with. plus, kids are better at healing their bones compared to adults so it was all good. we were in and out of his room in 5 minutes, tops.
jeff definitely took longer in the toilet.
later that day, raven and i hung out at the library. jeff joined us after his usual round of skating around the streets of dandenong. and surprise, surprise, an art session was to be held in one of the rooms at the time so we decided, why not? we were there already anyway.
it was a nice family bonding as mostly it’s usually just me attending art courses with the hopes that it would ignite my creativity so i can douse whatever tiny flame it creates with petrol. get some serious fire going. i’m desperate. i’ve been so uninspired lately, you have no idea.
but, hey, i’m still here. some things you just have to fight for — freedom, self-expression, and sometimes even the shit you argue about in marriage. literally and figuratively.
*raven at 2 years old
the pauses between 
Luckily it’s just a tiny fracture and it sounds like she is coping well. Fractures can be scary: you can’t see them, but you can feel them. You just never know when they’ll happen – sometimes you’ll fall alright and sometimes you just don’t. Haha, talk about being uninspired. It’s so hard to get out of that slump when you really are struggling to find that creativity…and I like that sort of morbid thought of dousing any spark with petrol. That will sure keep you going 😀 For me, when I’m not inspired to write or do photography, then I’m not and no matter what I do or even walk away from doing that creative thing, I am still blank lol.
It is hard. And knowing you’re a writer yourself, i believe you’re familiar with that hollow feeling all too well. I’m just trying to ride this wave out. Hopefully this spell will end soon. 😐
Happy healing for Raven. 💚 Yesterday I got out of the house with four kids by allowing one to wear a swimsuit with a winter coat on top.😊
Omigod, that got me laughing hard! Nothing like summer in the middle of winter, hey? 😂 i gotta hand it to you. I have yet to learn the art of negotiating with my kid. Just an hour ago, she was throwing this massive tantrum because she only wanted to eat chocolate wafers. I stood my ground but in the end, failed. Husband gave her some before she was finally in the mood to eat proper food. It was exhausting trying to appease her and gaining control of the situation. Although to be honest, i give my husband credit for that. I just concentrated on eating my spicy chicken wings. 😉
I’ve learned to boil it down to just being direct, breathing, and remembering that ideas about what to do or how to respond do come when I’m in the right frame of mind. Lots of breathing! 😄
Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind. With practice, i should be able to breathe out calmness and serenity and not, i don’t know, fire?
The key for me is being willing to feel the anger, and I did feel a great big heaping load of it yesterday. Felt, accepted, processed. For such a long time I thought I just shouldn’t be angry, and that got me very confused.
That makes sense. I remember reading a book with a similar concept before about acknowledging the emotions and then letting them go. Easier said than done. I think i get caught up with what’s the ideal vs what i actually feel and it makes me feel guilty that I’m not taking the high road at that particular moment like I’m supposed/expected to.
Sometimes i wonder if this is payback time for when i was a kid and giving my parents a hard time. Lol.
The very best thing you can think of yourself when you were a kid is that you were perfect for your parents, right down to every last syllable and action, every blink of the eye. You were and are their opportunity to release any way they are blocking love and also to simply share joy.
When you can see yourself that way, you can see your child that way, and then when the anger comes, you can just know that because people all around you were afraid of various things as you were growing up, you became afraid, too. The anger just tells us that we believe we have something to fear, and that right now we feel helpless and powerless.
Now that I know it’s just my own belief kind of rising up and poking me, I can allow things to be as they are (swimsuit), allow my mind to settle (which sometimes takes some very intense time and even tears), and allow the balancing out to happen when it does. When we got to the park, she decided she wanted to put on her “park clothes.” 💚
And yes, those ideals still bite me in the butt!
I love how you put your perspective into words. My favorite is the third paragraph, about allowing things to flow smoothly along. That resonates with me a lot because I’m normally pretty chill. Until I’m suddenly not.
Thank you.
That was a good idea to hang out at the library and do creative stuff as a family. It’s very rare these days. Hope Raven’s leg will heal fast!
her leg is okay now. she’s back to running and playing around the house leaving a wake of mess in her trail.
the library actually has a lot of fun activities catered to people of all walks of life. i’m always on the lookout for the ones i’m interested in, although that one we joined on that night was merely a happy coincidence.
best of all, they’re free!
Glad to hear she’s up and running about now! Yaaas! Free events are the best, haha. 😀
for sure! i’m always on the lookout for local community events we can join that wouldn’t cost us an arm and a leg. there are quite a few from where we live but it’s finding the time that can be a problem sometimes.