He Just Has To Be A Kid

Praise the lord, I finally got outside today after being housebound all week due to my arch nemesis, ice. It was glorious even though it is the ass crack of winter out there. It is cold and I mean cold. I wore my long johns, jeans, a long-sleeved t-shirt under a sweater plus a cardigan and my coat and it was still cold out. Welcome to Canada, I guess. I love how everyone assumes Canada is like this all the time but we do have incredibly hot summers too.  I am UV light sensitive so I have to be very careful in the sun. I burn through my clothes easily and get rashes from the sun. One of my many other arch nemeses’

It was so nice to go out and do something. I did get talked into making a full Sunday dinner tomorrow night but I rock at making Sunday dinner. I cook a mean roast and make amazing Yorkshire puddings. Plus honey glazed carrots and potatoes, either Parisienne or garlic mashed. Don’t forget the gravy too. I hope I feel up to it. Today has been a bit better and I did get outside at least. I am slowly getting back to normal which feels good but I still feel pretty shitty. Lupus is no fun.

I have to see my Rhuemy next month, which means getting 13 vials of blood drawn. I had better remember to eat before I go or I will get lightheaded. The vein blew the last time because I have had so many needles and very tiny veins. There was always one big one on my left arm but it is the one that blew last time so I don’t know how it will go this time. Hopefully no other tests but you never know. I go on Valentine’s Day of all days. What a fun way to spend the day.

I actually got to sleep in today as my husband got up with our son. I expected to watch a Rangers game that was listed as being on this morning when I checked yesterday but wasn’t on actually. Instead I got treated to a real cracker of a game between Millwell and Everton (BOO!). Millwell is a fourth league team and Everton is top league. Millwell won in the dying minutes of extra time. It was one of the best games I have seen in a long time. Everton are arch rivals of Liverpool, the best team ever. They are going to win the league, just watch.

So, I got outside today. It’s funny how weird it feels going out after just a week inside. The cold air felt brittle against my skin and the sun seemed to shine brighter than it did. It was liberating but a bit scary as there is still some ice out there. I have to walk slowly and watch each step. Apparently if you waddle like a penguin you have less chance of falling but I don’t know if I really want to try that. I have enough funny walks depending on how I am doing, I don’t think I need to add the penguin waddle to them.

We are just doing our post dinner tradition of listening to music and watching our son dance and just be generally goofy. It’s bedtime for a certain four-year-old in just under an hour but he isn’t going to be happy to hear that. He loves bedtime because it is time with Mummy and we read but he hates going to bed. He can be quite determined at times, which I love him for and want to throttle him for. Kids. 

Bedtime is fun but I usually end up reading four or five books instead of the required three. Yes, I require my son to read three books a day but books for kids his age can be read in two or three minutes. He has a list of responsibilities where he gets to give himself a checkmark each day he does it. Read three books is the first on the list. Followed by patch eye (he hates it), clean up after myself and tell Mum and Dad I love them. He added the last one and I certainly not about to tell him he can’t tell me he loves me. I want to hear it as often as possible. It’s like a magic elixir. If you could bottle it and sell it you would make millions.

I guess that why I worry so much about how my illness affects him. He knows he has to be careful around Mummy and can’t suddenly move in front of her because Mummy can’t risk falling. He is going to remember me getting my hips replaced but was at least to young to remember the knees. I cried a lot. It hurt worse than childbirth but it also wasn’t a normal replacement. I get extra stuff because of the bone death. 

That’s some pretty nifty hardware. I already posted what my knees look like so I will officially have legs full of metal soon enough. I am scared I will have a harder time than I do now and it will affect my son. There are things I can’t teach him like skating or skiing. I can sit on my ass at the lodge with a cup of hot chocolate, reading a good book. I want him to learn as much as he can about whatever he can. I want him to be self sufficient and self reliant but I don’t want that to have to happen for him during childhood.

Illness requires you to grow up. I don’t want my son missing out on anything from childhood because I am sick. It isn’t fair and it shouldn’t affect him but it does and there is little I can do about it. I can make it as un-scary as possible but he will see the pain I am in and will only want to make me feel better. He shouldn’t be concerned about making me feel better. That’s my job. His only job is to be a kid. That’s it. He has to be a kid. I need that for him. I had to grow up fast and I don’t want that for him. He just has to be a kid.