The bubbles of marriage

This has been an odd couple of days. No, really, it has. Sunday, Emme, who LOVES the Stirring, had a meltdown. We were a few minutes late (oh, yeah - I ran into my ex-husband's ex-girlfriend at Walmart, so we had to chat a while) and as we arrived, a few of the kids were crying, so of course she had to join in. She refused to stay with her class, and insisted she wanted to go in with the grown-ups and "hear the man."

So, of course, we got inside, and she decided it was too loud, and she wanted to go back with the kids. Then Jake wouldn't go to his class. Arggh.

Then, Monday Jake had to have a myringotomy tube removed. He had his first set of ear tubes placed when he was three (he had his adenoids out at the same time). They fell out, as they were designed to, in 18-24 months, and he immediately filled up with fluid again. So, when he was five, he had to get a new set. They served him well, and the right one fell out as it should have, but the left one remained. We kept waiting. He would fuss at his ear constantly, saying it was itchy inside.

The doctor assured us that it was routine. That he would reach in and pull it out, then patch the eardrum. Jake got to sit in the big "Ear Room" at the doctor's office. It took the good doctor several tries, with a few different instruments to get the sucker out. It was forming granular tissue around the tube, basically gluing it into the eardrum. There was even a hair stuck in the tissue! No wonder it was bothering him! And it's kind of scary how big the thing was that the doctor pulled out of his eardrum, and the size of the hole that it left.

But the good doctor patched it, and we go back in a month to have his hearing checked, and he may be released! After five years of visits to the specialists, that would be a good thing.

So of course I had to take him to Coldstone, as he was very, very brave. He laid on the table, kind of scared, and he asked me to hold his head so he couldn't move it. He held onto my hands, and I told him to squeeze as hard as he needed to. And he did. But he didn't cry...he just kept saying, "ow, ow, ow, ow, ow.)

As we were driving home, he announced:

"Mommy, I have the bubbles of marriage." I don't know why it cracked me up the way it did. It just sounded so formal.

Of course, it was a little bottle of bubbles that couples hand out as favors. One of his schoolmates brought them in, as her mom had gotten remarried over the weekend. He knew that I love bubbles so he wanted me to have them.

Later that evening, he got into HUGE trouble. He and a neighbor boy walked down to the main street (off limits) and the other boy was throwing rocks at a car! Everyone admits that Jake didn't throw any, and he says he was trying to get his friend to stop, but the fact remains that he was an accessory and he was somewhere he SHOULD NOT HAVE BEEN! He could have been kidnapped, or hit by a car. Or the other boy could have been hurt, and Jake is bigger than him, and should have known better.

And I feel so helpless. Discipline sucks when you're a single parent. I had to call his dad and see what he thought. And then of course, he didn't see it as anything bad, because he didn't actually throw the rock. But he doesn't know the friend's parents, who expect me to pay half the bill because Jake was there. And he doesn't know the fear I felt when I went out to look for Jake and couldn't find him in the place he was supposed to be. And frankly, he doesn't see it as one part of the teaching of morals that we need to do (guess he doesn't see the importance of those pesky things anymore).

That's my vent for today. I'm going to go outside and blow bubbles now. That always makes me feel better.