Aaron and I were busy painting the rental house when the call came. Jeremiah had a cut on his head. The result of a Nerf dart gun battle and a picture frame that strategically fell just-so off the wall. I dropped everything to rush to his side. Only to find him laying calmly on grandparents couch watching Looney Tunes. I insisted that I be the one to take him to the ER because I am his mother and every boy needs his mother at a time like this. Right?
The ER was packed. I was informed by a kind nurse that summer is the season for injuries and some people wait too long to bring their child in when they have a fever. Aaron had packed us a book,
Danny the Champion of the World, thinking it would pass the time. I was informed by my oldest that he had already almost finished reading it during rest time and there was only one chapter left. So we sat in the lobby playing I spy, trying to watch the movie that was playing on the TV with the sound turned all the way down, making up stories, watching the flow of people coming in and out.
We also waited in the room we were finally assigned to. But there we could hear the TV and thankfully
Toy Story 3 was on. On the other side of the curtain a pre-teen boy was waiting with his family. Something about pulling something in his arm while at a baseball game. I could hear the grouching and complaining coming from that side of the room as the minutes ticked by on the clock. Jeremiah began to get restless. I began to feel impatience gnawing at me too.
Then I remembered these words,
Just for today, I will ask for His grace, that when stress mounts, I will dismount it with gratitude. My stress coping mechanism will be verbal intervention with verbal thanks. It is impossible to simultaneously feel stress and gratitude at the same time and I choose to give thanks at all times. Fight feeling with feeling! - Ann VoskampI took a deep breath and began to count;
- only a cut, nothing life-threatening, Jeremiah obviously not in much pain
- access to health care, the ability to bring my son to the ER when he needs it
- kind nurses who treat my son gently, yet talk to him with respect and enthusiasm
- the rare gift of 6 uninterrupted hours with my son
- time to listen to the last sermon in the
Radical series on my mp3 player
Suddenly my perspective of the way we were spending the evening changed. I fought impatience, stress, and exhaustion with gratitude and gratitude won!
Later in the evening while I had made a much needed run to the Ladies room the doctor came by to do her initial evaluation and found Jeremiah alone. She apparently had quite a conversation with him and later reported to me that he was a mature and well-spoken young man.
- Jeremiah being polite and thoughtful even in a strange situation
Even later we were moved to a trauma room (all the suture rooms were full) where we passed the time by telling knock-knock jokes.
- Jeremiah's laugh
- jokes about Jedi and stinky feet and getting hit on the head
- Jeremiah's thoughtfulness; "I hope Nathaniel isn't worried about me. I hope grandmom and grandad went to bed because it is past bedtime. I hope papa isn't anxious."
- not being in the trauma room because we needed the trauma equipment in it
The procedure was quick and painless. Despite his apprehension, "I wasn't afraid because it hurt. I just have never had stitches before so I didn't know what it would feel like." Jeremiah was a trooper and laid still while receiving his 5 stitches. Talking with the doctor and giving his approval, "That part was OK, you can keep going" as she gave a play by play of what she was doing. The gifts of the huge syringe used to clean the wound and a grape Popsicle made for a good end of a long night and Jeremiah was sound asleep before we arrived home in the dark of the night.
- Jeremiah's final thought about the whole experience, "I hope it is better by Sunday. I don't want to miss out on the battle with the other kids after church."
Note: I realize that I just painted a very idealistic view of the way the evening went. But, I really did learn the lesson that you really and truly can dismount stress with gratitude. I also learned that my attitude directly effected Jeremiah's attitude. He was able to wait with grace and patience because I was calm and patient as well. What wasn't so pretty and I didn't describe here, was how I got impatient with Aaron on the phone, was snippy and sarcastic with him, and generally treated him disrespectfully. But, that is for another post. I join Ann Voskamp at
A Holy Experience on Monday's as part of the Gratitude Community.
Nathaniel's favorite animals are the monkeys. Wonder why?
He thinks he's pretty cool stuff.
Jeremiah trying to see if he can jump as far as a cougar.
No fear Nathaniel walks right up to a peacock and was about to try and get a "pretty feh-ver."
Explorers searching for the dinosaurs.
Nathaniel showing his t-rex drawing to the t-rex.
We are not really zoo people. It kind of makes us sad to see animals penned up in cages for our entertainment. But Groupon was offering a year long, family membership to the Chattanooga Zoo for $27.00 and I just couldn't pass up that deal. We went on Friday morning, while it was still cool and not too busy. It was nice to know that we could stay for just as long as was interesting to the boys, because we could always come back another day. I'm pretty sure we will get our money's worth. It's a nice, small zoo so I don't feel worried when the boys run ahead of me. We will return for field trips I am sure. The boys were asking, "Do you have a scavenger hunt for us?" because they had really enjoyed the scavenger hunt at the Tellus museum. So I will try and do something creative for one of our visits. A big plus is that membership to this zoo gets us free admission to a lot of other zoo's around the country, including the Philadelphia Zoo!
