This is Gonna Hurt Me more than You

Interesting phrase. A mother or father tends to say that to children, before they punish them. I thought of it this morning as I was preparing Aiden's medication. Today was the first day we gave him an injection of Enbrel. I just kept thinking to myself, "this is for his own good, it'll make him feel so much better." There was a sudden fleeting moment where I considered not giving it to him. It was right around here:



Who could look at that and not have second thoughts of poking it in your child's leg? Then, I had a flashback to last night. A little before bed Aiden started acting kind of strange. He was working a puzzle with his Daddy when he just started crying and saying his feet hurt. He curled up in his Daddy's lap, cried, and tried to work the puzzle at the same time. I asked Patrick if he felt feverish, but he didn't. Patrick and I exchanged that look of, "here we go, we're about to start a TRAPS episode." It's a look of defeat, pain, exhaustion and helplessness.

We put the boys to bed. About two hours later we heard Aiden whimpering in his room. He never got up. About an hour after that he came out of his bedroom and made a beeline for his Daddy. He was screaming and crying big huge crocodile tears. My heart ached for my little boy. He kept telling us his feet hurt. They were hot to the touch. He wasn't running a fever, but his feet were definitely dealing with some crazy inflammation. I tried to rub Aiden's little feet, but he just cried more when I did. We gave him some Motrin, it's an anti-inflammatory, and he slept soundly between us the rest of the night.

So, I thought of his pain last night, reminded myself this would help, we explained the process to Aiden and I poked that needle into his little three year old leg. He cried when I gave him the shot, but he's very proud of his bandaid.



So, where's the bandaid for a Mommy's heart?