A scary moment...

If you're a parent, you've probably had one of these. A scary moment. I'm typically the calm parent. Probably known as the mean parent to some. I'm the one yelling at my kids on the sidelines of a game to get up and shake it off. I really think I can tell the difference when my kids are crying because they are actually hurt or when their feelings are hurt. So, I encourage my kids to get up when they fall down, to keep going when some kid has pushed them down or to not cry when they strike out. I'm sure some parents would disagree, but this is how I handle many situations.

I think this is in part because I watched many parents over my sports years growing up (especially with girls) coddle their kids. And more times than not, I watched parents make the situation worse by doing this. I'm not sure if I despised it because I wanted to be one of those kids that could cry when they got an out or didn't score the goal or if I just thought then as I do now - are you kidding me? Seriously? You can't cry every time you get an out, don't win a game or score the winning run! I can't cry now, as an adult, when I don't get a good evaluation at work, or when I don't like my boss. I'm a firm believer that sports and many extracurricular activities teach kids many valuable lessons in life. Are they all good? No, I'm sure they aren't. But my point in all this rambling is that I feel like I've learned many valuable lessons through the years with all of my extracurricular activities - and of course, I must give much credit to my parents, to not overreact to every situation.

(Here's the but - and it's a small, brief but, but still a but) However, a couple of weekends ago, I woke up to Braeden crying *er, screaming* in the middle of the night. This is not typical, but does happen occasionally. I went upstairs to check on him and opened his door without turning any lights on.

Me - Sweetie. What's going on?

Braeden - (crying and sobbing hysterically) I have a wizard!

Me - You have a lizard? Where? On the wall? (we had been playing outside a lot the last few days because the weather had been so nice and they were chasing lizards one day, so that's what I thought he was saying. And I thought he had been dreaming about them and it wasn't real.)

Braeden - NO! I have a wizard!

Me - What are you talking about? Where is this lizard?

Braeden - Right here mommy! (he says this as sad as can be and points to his lip)

I finally turn on the hall light and when my eyes focus a little I let out a huge gasp! The gasp, of course, freaks him out so I immediately say "oh it's ok, mommy just got scared with the light on, I thought I really saw a lizard on the wall. Let's go downstairs and get you some medicine."

Little did I know that he couldn't really talk properly because his lip looked like this! The entire time he was trying to say BLISTER, not wizard or lizard!! terrible mom moment.... terrible mom moment...

I wouldn't have even taken any pics except I thought if I take him to the pediatrician the next morning I want him to see just how big his lip actually got. Not the best pics because they were taken with my phone. But my poor baby!! :(

This was one of those scary moments where the cry really meant something and I would have panicked had their dad not had similar allergic reactions. (and let's just say that my extracurricular activities over the years helped my reaction since I said all of the above! :) ) I am not sure what happened with Braeden or why his lip swelled the way it did, but I knew enough to give him benadryl. Which I did and then slept the rest of the night with him on the couch so that I could monitor him. Not even 4 hours later his lip looked close to normal. My little man was running around as normal as could be the next day, but it was still a bit of a scary moment!