People look at him funny. Kaiser even made him a tin foil hat to go with it…

I’m not sure which was worse, seeing my son in a vegetative state-eyes open, mouth agape, carried by a doctor–or walking into a room where my baby boy was laid on a chair-tubes in his nose, iv in his arm, EKG monitors on his chest.

We had to put Count Waffles under general anesthesia for dental work on Friday and my mind is still playing tricks on me. I lost my shit at the dentist office, to say the least. He was given a shot to get him *mostly* sedated before they inserted the iv and really knocked him out, and it left him looking like he was in a coma. It was horrible. The doctor told us his eyes would remain open but he would be asleep. I was not prepared for what he would look like. Mouth open, eyes open, pale, but totally out of it. The doctor grabbed him from my husband’s arms and I was SURE he was still awake. I was SURE he was scared some strange man was grabbing him from us and that he was TERRIFIED yet unable to talk or scream or cry.

That’s when I started to lose it. They ushered us into the waiting room where I sat and not so silently freaked out. I Twittered. I read magazine articles on things like planting a fall soup garden and how to buy the best bathingsuit. I imagined the doctor coming out to tell me there was a problem. I imagined paramedics rushing in. I imagined things I can’t even type.

46 minutes later our dentist emerged to tell us all was going well and it would be awhile longer. It was like I didn’t believe him. I felt better, but not convinced my son was ok.

63 minutes after that, I was summoned to the back so I would be the first face my son saw when he awoke. He was asleep, oxygen in his nose, red marks from the tape and the heart monitors. Things were beeping. The doctor was talking to me but I couldn’t hear him. I must have gone white at the site of my son on that chair. I was told if I couldn’t handle seeing him this way I could leave. The look on my face showed my answer as I turned my head at the doctor and he quickly and shamefully turned away.

Count Waffles awoke and did, what I am told, only 10% of kids do in this situation. He did NOT just groggily fall into my arms and sleep it off. He did NOT do the drunken, happy, I’m all doped up thing. No. He GOT PISSED and tried to WALK HOME.

My husband had to carry him to the car, as I was not strong enough to handle his flailing. He then spent a good hour on our living room couch freaking out. His world was spinning. It was his “worst day ever” and he was miserable.

An hour after that he was sound asleep in my bed.

I realize my son is lucky. We are lucky. He doesn’t have a life threatening illness or disease. We don’t have to go through this on any sort of regular basis. However, just those visual of him…the coma-like state, the tubes…I can’t get them out of my head. I can’t stop thinking about it. I don’t know how to make those images go away. I want them wiped from my mind forever.

I also want to apologize. I get on my kids for whining, yet as it turns out, I’m the biggest whiner of them all. I use the blog to bitch and moan about how the kids drive me crazy and how I want to escape from it all. The truth is…I would die without them. Die.

Had anything happened at the dentist office, I’d die. DIE.

While the blogging community gives me a great feeling of “you are not alone” when I complain about being a Mom, I’m going to try not to FOCUS so much on the more difficult aspects of motherhood. I invite you to do the same.

Sure, we all need to vent here and there…but lately I vent more than I praise. I bitch more than I thank. GOD I forget HOW LUCKY I AM and how I’d die without these kids. I’d throw myself off the nearest bridge. I’d crash my car into a tree. I’d without question be killed by the heartache.

So I’m going to try and curb the whine. Yes, motherhood is hard. Yes, bad days are frequent. But just like I tell the kids…no whining.

I don’t want to hear it.

Of course I tell my kids they can do anything. I tell them they can be anything. I tell them anything is possible.

What I didn’t realize, was 4 years of telling my son the world, nay, the universe was his to take-now means 24 hour viewing of the Science channel and every single thing in my home being taken apart.

EVERYTHING.

My remotes don’t work. Which is fine since we only watch the Science channel.
ALL of his toys are in various stages of dismantling.

I step on screws everywhere I walk.

My kitchen floor is caked in goo and water and flour from his “experiments”-which he calls his “experiences.”

Damn me and my positive parenting.

Happy 4th of July.