It's not easy being Jonny C...

I've no business being online right now, as there are at least a dozen other things needing my attention in this house. But, as of five minutes ago, I'm finding myself without any children awake...and my blog is seriously needing some updates.

Now, about my Jonny.
It's been a heck of a few days for him round these parts.
I'll begin with Saturday. I left that morning for a girls' overnight out at the lake with friends...and Brian was awesome, I'm happy to report, about the whole thing. I think the fact that he got to drink beer and eat pizza with dudes made a difference, but let's just assume that he was loving his Daddy Time. So, as mentioned, the dudes of our girls' group were invited to assemble themselves and their respective "charges" over at one of our friends' houses...to let the kids play...and eat pizza, drink beer, and watch football. Oh, and kids, too...to watch the kids, too. *wink*
Honestly? It was an awesome idea...gave Brian and the boys something fun to do, change of scenery, etc....and yet, the best feature of all was the setting. Because when little Jonny C decided to do a header onto a large toy school bus and slice his upper lip open...he was lucky enough to be in the home of a surgeon.
Holy shnykies.
And Brian, when he left me a message detailing the whole debacle on my cell phone voicemail, was able to include the following phrase: "...but, luckily he (daddy surgeon) was able to clean it and apply some surgical glue to Jonathan's lip...he also examined it to determine if he needed stitches or not, which he doesn't...so...don't worry, honey..."
Meanwhile, I'm holding a french dip sandwich in mid-air, staring off into space with a "WTF???" expression on my face as I listen to the message at lunch in Holland.
After talking with Brian later that afternoon, I'm reassured...and honestly? Just glad I wasn't there for it. I even decide in my mind that it was probably far worse to witness than it is in actuality...and I do a pretty good job of believing that.
That is, until, I see little Jonny C in the nursery at church the next morning.
I met Brian and the boys there, and was paged into the nursery during the service because the little dude was crying and completely out of sorts. When I found him, he not only had snot mixed with tears all over his very red face...but his upper lip made him look like he'd been at war. And to add insult to injury (quite literally), he had a giant patch of dried, crusted booger underneath his nose that was totally stuck to the wound on his lip.
What is it with our husbands that they DON'T know how to wipe noses? Ok, I'll retract that statement in the odd likliehood that my eldest brother is reading this...because he's every wife's hero when it comes to keeping the wee ones clean and hygenic.
But I digress.

So...after a few days, Jonny's little injury resembles less of an ax wound...and more of an Adolf Hitler costume. But the important thing is he's on the mend.

And that brings us to this morning.
Jonathan had an appointment to have his allergies tested at 7:30am. Brian's out of town, so I brought Benjamin over to his Nana's at 7, still in his sleeper...PLG. So cute.
And off Jonny and I went to the allergist's office, which was surprisingly busy for 7:30 in the morning.
Anyway...I knew he was going to have the "skin test" done on his back, as I'd had it done when I was a teenager and was quite familiar with it.
Or so I thought. What I forgot was how un-freaking-comfortable it was, and that the person having the testing done had to lie completely still for TEN FUCKING MINUTES, face down, on an examining table. Except in this case, it wasn't a person having it done.
It was a one year old.
And not just any one year old, friends...the squirmiest, most wiggly, most stubborn and freakishly strong one year old you've met. Even our pediatrician says she's never seen "such a squirmy and determined kid"...so when the nurses this morning politely said not to worry, that most babies "settle right down" once the procedure started, I just gave them a nervous smile and decided it was their funeral.
Or mine.
Or Jonny's.
Basically it was all of ours.
Now, it's important that I mention here how I feel about shots, and other such procedures done on my children. As sensitive as a Sally as I am...LOL...I'm amazingly thick-skinned about enduring these types of scenarios. I've always been able to tough it out through the screams, wails and pathetic, reaching arms during immunizations...all because I know it's for a good cause.
But this morning, for some reason, I couldn't hack it.
Nurse #1 instructed me to lie him down, face down, on the examining table (you know, the one with the ream of butcher paper fastened to it...sheesh...so comfy), and to stand over the head of the table while holding his arms and upper back/neck down with my own forearms. She actually gave the following nugget of advice right before we started: "Sometimes moms use their own head to pin the child's head to the table".
Was she high?
Was this allergists office stuck in mid-evil times? Were the nurses going to clink their heavy, giant mugs of beer together in the hallway when the screaming commenced?
I waited for nurse #2 to grab ahold of Jonny's legs and ankles before squinting my eyes and deciding to picture his birth..the happy, peaceful moment he came into the world. I tried telling him about that into his ear when the procedure began, but he didn't seem calmed by it.
Instead, he proceeded to buck wildly beneath all of our grips...screaming, wailing, spitting, and blowing snot all over the butcher paper.
It was awful.
Even as I type I'm remembering how horrid and barbaric it felt.
I did my best to "shh-shhh" in his ear...and just held my face right next to his cheek...and tried to communicate love to him the best way I could. Which was laughable, since I basically had him in a WWF-style grip. All the while, nurse #1 was working away at the pricking of several spots on his poor little back, dropping various types of liquid into each one. These were substances geared to determine which foods he's allergic to. By this point I would've settled for "just feed him vegetables for the rest of his life" if it'd meant we could just get the hell out of that office.
At one point, when I thought neither Jonny or I could take any more...he managed to move his head just enough to look up at me with this pathetically pleading expression, and that's when I lost it. Totally started crying...sobbing, actually. Heavy breathing, chest in spasm-mode...the whole shootin match. And Jonny kept right on with more of the same on his end.
It was at that point that the nurse plunked an egg timer down on the table, announcing that we had "8 and a half minutes left".
Fuu-huuck!
And it was then that nurse #1 packed up her shit and instructed myself and nurse #2 just to "hang in for 8 more minutes while the liquid dries"...so results had time to manifest.
Damn, this was the hardest thing I'd been through as a mom. And making the whole thing worse was the fact that Jonny was clearly itching like mad from all of the marks on his back. Right away several of the pin prick marks were turning into welts, indicating allergies to various things..like wheat, eggs, barley, rye...and the mother of all allergies, and one very familiar in our family, peanuts.

Anyway, by the time we neared the last minute, Jonathan actually started to quiet down and close his eyes. The nurse told me we were done and that I could get him dressed...but this sistah wasn't about to work a onesie over his little head right about then. Instead, I scoope him up as fast as I could (seemed to be in slow motion), and held him all naked in his diaper for a good five minutes before I got him dressed. And he didn't move...just cuddled next to me and whimpered. But just being able to hold him was heaven.

If anyone reading this has been through this procedure, they know of my pain this morning. And more importantly, of Jonny's.
Right now he's happily sleeping upstairs, enjoying a long afternoon nap.
And the irony of all ironies is that he likely doesn't remember a thing...the whole ordeal was obviously much harder on him than it was anybody else, but it's going to leave the biggest scar on his mommy.

As we were leaving I asked the allergist (whom we met with after the procedure was finished) how I should interpret a rash that had broken out on my eldest child's face last weekend after eating a bite of peanut butter. Her eyes got a little big, her eyebrows raised, and she said "Hmm, let's bring him in. Doesn't sound good."
To this, I said..."Alrighty, will do."

But in the car, while driving back to Nana's in the rain to pick up Benjamin...Jonathan in deep slumber in his carseat...I called Brian to tell him of the whole ordeal. When I got to the part about Benjamin, at the very end of the story, he asked me if I was actually going to make the appointment.

You figure that one out.

At least not today, anyone. I'm not a negligient mom...just a fragile one today.