in which I both give and get the hairy eyeball

I've gotten at least 3 phone calls from school in the past 2 weeks that Cheer has a stomach ache. (I can't remember if I've talked about this before and I'm too lazy to go search, but it's been going on for YEARS.) Ok wait. Here it is.

On Monday, I had to pick up Tide at school so he could come home to shower and change because he was collateral damage to someone else's stomach issues. (I know. Ick. I feel bad for both of them.) Wednesday and Thursday, I kept Shout home because she has a cough that sounds like tuberculosis and there's a kid in her class with fragile health who really shouldn't be exposed to her tuberculosis-like self.

Then I had to pick up Cheer on Wednesday AN HOUR BEFORE DISMISSAL ON A HALF DAY because of a stomach ache. So I basically spent more time driving him to and from school and talking on the phone with the school than he was actually THERE. (Of course, they did have him try to eat his snack to see if he was hungry before calling me. And what did his Mother of the Year pack for his healthy snack? These babies.




See the flames on the package? I am awesome, no?) (Don't judge me, internet. The pantry was empty.)

So when he complained again this morning, I finally called the pediatrician's office just so someone could tell me to give him a Tums and send him to school. But they decided he needed to come in.

I went over his symptoms with the doctor, she felt around his belly and asked where it hurt. (He says "EVERYWHERE" and I saw her write down "diffuse abdominal pain.")

(I wanted to mention that when you tell him, "How about your eyelashes? Because sometimes when your stomach hurts, your eyelashes hurt too. Do YOUR eyelashes hurt?" He will touch his eyelashes and MOAN "YEEEESSSSS." But I didn't want to sound unsupportive, so I phrased it as "He's very open to the power of SUGGESTION," and waggled my eyebrows at her. Then she wrote down, "Mother is a lesbian.")

Finally she said, "How long would you say this has been going on?"

Without even thinking, I said "Oh, three years."

And that's when she opened up the Child Protective Services tab on her computer.

To summarize, instead of getting a coupon for Children's Tums, I ended up with a slips for an abdominal x-ray, a bunch of bloodwork and a referral to a pediatric GI doctor.

This was SO not turning out to be the day I had planned on.

We headed to the radiology place, where a women in the waiting room with OMG! SO! MUCH! PERFUME! wafting around her person kept giving us the hairy eyeball because we all kept sneezing and coughing. Hello? We were sneezing and coughing from ALL THE PERFUME. ALL THE WAY ACROSS THE ROOM.

After that, we drove to the lab. I knew the gods were smiling on me when I spied a parking space RIGHT IN FRONT. I started pulling in and a psycho woman in a white Audi SUV parked next to the empty space started aggressively honking her horn and pointing to me like I was about to HIT HER PRECIOUS CAR. Except I was 10 FEET AWAY. And I was pulling into a parking space. Not exactly a complicated maneuver.

She had a tiny white dog on her lap with BARRETTES who was barking furiously. (As furiously as something that only weighs 4 pounds can bark.) (I'm totally making up the part about the barrettes. I was TEN FEET AWAY. I couldn't have seen barrettes. But I'm sure it had some. And I bet they were rhinestone.)

I gave her a little hairy eyeball of my own and parked as far away from her as possible.

When they finally called our name in the lab, Shout started giving Cheer tips on a successful blood draw and the phlebotomist was a little confused about why a 5-year old knows so much about needle gauges and collection tubes. Sigh.

So the question remains, for now. Does his stomach really hurt? I actually think maybe it does. But he feels MUCH BETTER when he's not in school. He's not having a bad time at school, he'd just rather not be there. And when forced to do something he doesn't want to do, he gets a stomach ache. Makes perfect sense to me. (Maybe because I have that same stomach.) Some people just live life through their stomachs.

Here's the irony. Going to school gives HIM a stomach ache. NOT going to school, gives ME one.