Anxiety

Everyone says my kids look like Joe. Even Grant--the one who I think looks most like me (it's the nose and white skin). But if there is one thing that the kids got from me. . . it's worry (except Grant, ironically). I worry. I think I'm getting better--only because I make a conscious effort because I want to live a full life, and you can't if you are fearful or worried about everything. Not many people know this, but I was diagnosed with anxiety about a year after Joe and I got married. I've learned a lot about how to deal with anxiety over the past decade.

Anyway, this wasn't supposed to be about me.

Here are some examples:  

Madison may be one of the only girls around who has absolutely NO interest in getting her ears pierced. Why? Because it involves a sharp object going through her ears. The other day she asked me why I didn't just get it done when she was a baby and couldn't think or remember it. (I, for some reason, do not fear pain. I wanted my ears pierced so badly that I did it myself with a dull earring.)

Logan (probably the most anxious of us all) is afraid of dogs. We went on a family walk and there was an unattended dog in a yard. It started barking and big-eyed Logan backed away in a panic. (Grant, on the other hand, walked towards the dog. He is fearless. . . mainly because he thinks he is a super-hero. Seriously.)

Logan has been especially anxious over the past three months. In September he ran into a fence while playing ball at school and he had to get some stitches in his bottom eyelid. I held him down while they inserted the gear necessary to put him completely under. The nurse blew something like 4 veins trying to get that needle into the boy (who was kicking and screaming). He miraculously held still for the plastic surgeon while the sutures were removed but the idiot doctor failed to remove the two that we found two weeks later--sticking out like blue eyelashes. Now almost 3 months later, after several canceled appointments (on their part) and one failed (on our part), and also after Logan had fasted 3 Sundays, said numberless prayers, and received a blessing from his father, we were excited for the final appointment where Logan would theoretically sit still while the doctor removed the final stitch. Well, Logan did his part, but it had taken so long that the suture had grown into the skin. The doctor informed us that he could get it out by injecting numbing stuff into Logan's eyelid and then recutting the injury in order to remove the suture.

WHAT!!

Well, we tried. Logan tried. But not matter how much he wanted to sit still, he couldn't do it.

Our initial response was to be furious. "Just sit still and let the idiot doctor finish this once and for all!!!!" 

It wasn't happening.  No threat of burning Pokemon cards or canceling the celebratory Chucky Cheese dinner was going to do it.

I've been told that he was screaming out, "NOOOO! Why was I playing ball? Why am I friends with those people? If I wasn't friends with them I wouldn't have been playing ball and then I wouldn't have run into the fence! Why did I have to run into the fence!? That is the worst day of my life!" 

A few hours and many tears later I've come to this conclusion:

He's nine. And he's got some anxiety issues. We shouldn't be angry at him because of something that isn't really his fault. 

I still don't know what we are going to do. I mean, does it really matter if he has a tiny dot of plastic in his eyelid for the rest of his life? 

And Logan and I. . . we'll continue to work with the anxiety.