"Why are you trying to 'off' yourself?"

This week has been pretty interesting with Jose. Well, the last THREE weeks, Jose has been on a "suicide" mission. All of you parents know these missions well. I myself was a master at them in my day...wait-a-minute! Damn...realization...So, "suicide missions" are the ones that all little kids go on from walking to the end of adolescents. Boys apparently don't grow out of them... These are the missions that result in kids thinking they are made of teflonkevlarrubber (note to self: ask DuPont if such chemical exists and if it's safe to apply generously and often to children). The ones where you climb the highest tree in the neighborhood, lean too far out to see your house and meet the ground in a violent manner resulting in breaking your arm. OR making a slip-n-slide out of trash bags and rusty nails AND USING IT! (Yes, I do know someone who did this, I watched and waited for the impending blood) There's playing chicken with a car by running across the street right before it hits you...the whole neighborhood did this, I would like to add. Jumping off the roof of the car Super Man style (another note to self: buying Jose shirts with capes on them may be perpetuating this concept), because you think you can fly. Or jumping off of the roof of the house because....well, because. This is a small (and trust me, I do mean very small...my medical record was 3 inches thick by the time I was 13! Not exaggerating) example of "suicide missions" that I myself am acquainted with. You all have your own, and you know them well. They were awesome at the time, and you knew that after that first 30-45 seconds of pure awesomeness, there was going to be some type of consequence injury. You did it any ways, and after the tears was a hero, the neighborhood legend for the day/week (depending on how many other kids accepted missions on a regular basis). Well, as a parent these "suicide missions" are "anxietyriddenheartattack moments". (Mom, I am so sorry! You were always great fun in the emergency room though!). Jose has been determined to go on one everyday for the last three weeks! At the sitters, he's climbing to the top of EVERYTHING and trying to jump off! She has saved his small butt at least on the average of 6 times per day. I now get a count of times he's tried to "complete" his mission along with my other daily parent updates. I swear if there was a legal and safe way to keep Jose on firm soil, Malinda would do it! Well, this week was almost a success. On Tuesday I kept Jose home, trying to figure out if he was sick or had a sinus infection (and we'll take sinus infection in the state of Virginia for $1,000 Alex). We went to Home Depot to buy paint for the bathroom, and he got buckled into the race car cart. At Home Depot, the race car replaces the seat and there is a two tiered "basket" for your items. As I placed him in it, I looked at the icon that shows a kid not being buckled getting hurt. As always, I thought "that'd be Jose", and I strap him in. In we go, I'm staring at paint, he's racing a car...and then he gets quiet. Oh Crap! (Quiet was my moms indicator that she was about to make a trip with me to the emergency room.) I turned just in time to see finish slipping out of the straps (Chinese contortionist Latino boy!), and mid balance himself in the lower tiered cart. Just as I reach for him, he starts to fall, realizes he's about to crack his skull, turns to break his fall by catching himself with his arms (thank you gymnastics!!), and hits himself on the head right above his left eye. Sigh...it was one of those parenting moments where it's happening in a split second, but your parental fear has it and you going in slow motion. I scoop him off the ground, check his head (no swelling and no bruising!) and sit on the floor and rock him. He's crying and telling me he's ok (so brave), yet I'm freaked out because Home Depots floor is so damn hard! After talking to my mom and an EMT friend of mine, I schedule a visit with his pediatrician for two hours. They give me the list of what to be on the look out for until then. I wasn't going to Langley, as they're not very kid friendly, and the last time I was there, they tried to tell me Jose's simple (yet horrible) sinus infection was some crazy respiratory virus. I asked for another doctors opinion, but because of military ranking, the second doctor could not override the opinion of the first one (and I was RIGHT!) So, no Langley ER. Sentara? $200 co-pay! All of it has to go back to his pediatrician, as well as Jose himself, they know him best, off to Suffolk we go! I'm cautiously watching him play, AND HE TRIES TO CLIMB ONTO THE PLAY TABLE! Smh... We make it to the back and the doctor walks in with a big smile on her face, walks up to Jose and says "Why are you trying to off yourself?" EXACTLY!! That's my question!!!! I felt so relieved that she understood what he was doing and she was trying to calm my nerves from this scare. She checked him, he did all of his "magic tricks" and she declared him: "perfectly fine, the most adorable boy she's ever seen and highly intelligent!" (He spelled the word 'experiment' for her on his Endless ABC app). RELIEF! As she walks out of the door, she starts to chuckle, turns to me and says, "You have a textbook perfect example of a boy. Don't worry, I'm sure we'll see you in here a lot for reasons like this. It's normal and you'll get the hang of dealing with it." I just started laughing. She's right. I gave my mom HELL (3 inch medical record)! She was a pro at the ER, and learned to expect it. She's told me she was scared at first, but understood that I was adventurous, daring, bold, brave and just a bit naive enough to think it was going to work. She also said by "letting" me do those things, that I learned to go for what I want, suffer the consequences and rebuild from it all to keep going. Awesome. And I am that way, which has lead me to success. So, Jose is going to keep trying to "off himself" on "suicide missions" and I'm going to try to minimize the great risk, let him take some scrapes (but I NEVER want to do the Home Depot fiasco again!), get acquainted with all area hospital routes and let him be. Let him challenge, grow, learn, try again, try again again, fail, succeed, scrape by unscathed, get hurt, learn from consequences and mistakes, and allow him to become a wonderful, well adjusted person with great childhood stories to tell. In the meantime, does the daily regimen of Bayer aspirin really reduce the risk of heart attack? Lol!


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