It’s funny; I think very often about the moments that make me really feel like a mom. And it is not the ones that I would expect.

Like packing lunch, for example. It’s such a mom thing. I put each item in it’s own separate little container and make sure everything is neat, and she often gets notes or drawings. But this doesn’t make me feel like a mom.

What does make me feel like a mom is when she comes home from school on a Friday, with her lunchbox destined to be sitting, vacant for the weekend, and I wipe down the inside with a disinfectant and making sure it is free from any crumbs.

These little tiny moments seem to always catch me by surprise. I feel like such a mom.

In the spirit of the honesty that I have pledged to you when stating mission of my blog, I will say that yesterday I had a little thing. I am fine, it’s just a thing, but I realized (and was told) that if I continue to write about every trip that I take to the Emergency Room I am going to seem like either:

A really hyperbolic hypochondriac

or

An oversharer

or

An attention seeker

or

A liar,

because seriously, who could make this stuff up?

Anyway, my “thing” left me with mixed emotions; I was drained of energy, but filled with love for my friends and family.

I was a bit nervous about today, being home alone with the baby all day long with no support, but I mustered up my confidence as best I could. I woke up slowly, having a hard time keeping my eyes open. At some point J texted me to check in. Here is our convo:

I was, what you could say, a tad run down. BUT, I took my medicine fastidiously, put the kids in cute clothing and even changed out of my pajamas.

Except, when I was changing out of my pajamas, I thought I looked funny in the mirror. My face looked fuller, which it really shouldn’t have, as I hadn’t eaten for most of the day prior. My eyes, especially, looked swollen. Kind of like when my son had his reaction to penicillin. I attributed it to IV fluids and moved on, taking note of the fact that my rings were tighter as I made a bottle for my son.

By some miracle, our babysitter bestie had to stop by today to pick something up, and she just so happens to be a nurse; and when she arrived, I just so happened to start getting itchy eyes and an itchy throat.

As it turns out (after speaking with my Doctor’s office) it was an allergic reaction to the medicine I had been told to take.

Of course.

Because why wouldn’t I have an allergic reaction to the medicine? It should be listed right there on that punch card that I am working on getting.

Now here is where it gets really funny.

My regular antihistamine (the medicine I was advised to take for my allergic reaction) was expired, so I had to use the kids’ liquid version. I saw that one pill contains 25mg of regular medicine, and according to the bottle, 5ML (the typical size for an infant’s medicine dropper) would contain 2.5mg of medicine.

We were incredulous, laughing, not knowing what to do.

We stood in my son’s room, trying to do math, multiplying & dividing, and then, because she is an angel, my friend realized that it did not, in fact, contain 2.5mg of medicine in 5ML but 12.5mg; She looked at the directions in Spanish, and the “12.5” was visible, whereas the “1” on the front of the bottle had worn off.

Thank goodness, because I was exceedingly close to taking 10 droppers full of benadryl (125mg, which would be a lot).

So I used an infant dropper and choked down the syrup and my symptoms subsided.

But instead of throwing up my hands and saying, “Why me?” I looked at this as an opportunity for me to laugh, to share a really funny experience with a person who is dear to me, and to make a hilarious memory for years to come.

I mean really, picture it, the two of us, running around, trying to do math, frantically, with a baby eye medicine dropper, my face and hands all swollen, the baby confused…it was quite a scene.

So this would be, I believe, an example of making lemonade out of lemons…

just like the lemonade that I packed in my daughter’s spotless, disinfected lunch box for the first time, today.

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