An Open Letter to the Moms of the Girls on the Softball Team My Husband Coaches

Dear Moms of the Girls on the Softball Team My Husband Coaches,

Even though our season just began last week, and we’ve only played two games, and still have ten more games to go, I feel it necessary to help you help yourself be a gracious human being by sharing the gems of advice below:

1. Please do not permit your daughter to arrive at a game with bronchitis. We appreciate you telling us that she loves the game that much — to show up with back pain and her chest on fire — but we aren’t interested in forfeiting the rest of our season because all of our players mysteriously contracted bronchitis. Boundaries can be a helpful parenting tool.
2. If your daughter has been upset and in tears late into the night because she didn’t get to play her preferred position(s) in a game, that is not my husband’s fault. You need to help her learn to adjust her expectations. With 12 players on a team, you should have expected this. It’s called rotation, and it will happen a LOT this season. Please adjust your daughter’s expectations accordingly.
3. Yes, you are correct: My husband does sacrifice a lot of time coaching our team. However, he cannot be expected to teach your daughter everything she needs to know to be an outstanding softball player in only 3 short practices. Parents should anticipate the need to practice with their daughters at home if they are interested in improving their softball skills. Even if they have been playing since they were 4, there’s always room for improvement.
4. I’m sorry if your daughter’s confidence was so shaken by her position toward the bottom of the batting order in a particular game that she could not connect with the ball when she was at bat. Please see #3 above. Please also recall the previous game where she was one of the first 3 at bat, which resulted in the same outcome. Numbers don't seem to be the issue here.
5. Regarding your daughter being heartbroken at the thought of not playing for an inning: We are talking about ONE inning. Because we have 12 players. And can only have 10 (sometimes 11) on the field at a time. And again, this will also rotate throughout the season. It will impact all of the players. Everyone’s daughter (including our own) will rotate throughout the season, and chill on the bench for a single inning. This is called life.
6. Let me remind you: We’ve played only TWO games this season. Apparently you have not provided my husband with an adequate opportunity to demonstrate to you that players will rotate field positions as well as batting order during our remaining TEN games. I’m confident that even though it’s been hard on you to watch your daughter suffer so terribly, she will have plenty of opportunities to play her desired position(s) and bat right smack dab at the top of the order. Trust me. My husband knows numbers, and he knows how to be fair.
7. We’ve had 3 practices and 2 games. While we appreciate your daughter’s desire to show that she is a good player, if it were in fact true, it would have already been demonstrated by now.
8. Do let us know what you expect my husband to do when the other 10 players’ moms send him an email asking him to consider giving their child more opportunities on our team. I’m curious to know exactly how he is supposed to appease All. The. Moms.
9. Thank you for asking but no, there is nothing you can do. My husband won’t be persuaded into giving your daughter preference over his other 11 players. All of these girls deserve the same opportunities, and will receive the same opportunities. See #8 above.

Sincerely,

The Wife of Your Daughter’s Softball Coach

Bad Mommy!

WARNING: This post contains graphic images. Well, they're graphic if you're like me and you don't like to see grody skin conditions. Proceed at your own risk.

So a few weeks ago, LO complained about soreness in her thumb. I didn't think much of it the first time she mentioned it, but when she told me again a day or so later, I took a closer look. This is what I found:

June 20, 2012

Gross, right? It looked almost like a burn or something. I asked her how it happened, if she hurt it somehow and she said she didn't know what happened.

For the past 2 weeks, we've just cleaned it out with peroxide, treated it with Neosporin and slapped a band-aid on it.

Fast-forward to yesterday. OMG. I asked to look at her thumb and totally gagged when I saw it. And of course I immediately felt awful that it looked so bad. Eeeew:

July 5, 2012

I asked her if it hurt at all and she (surprisingly) said no, so that made me feel a little bit better. I called her pediatrician and made an appointment for that afternoon.

Ugh. The doctor diagnosed her with paronychia, which sounds really bad but it is essentially a skin infection that occurs around the nails. She put her on a hefty antibiotic for 10 days, which should help to decrease the swelling and redness, as well as eliminate any kind of "oozing" from the nail. The doctor also mentioned: SHE WILL PROBABLY LOSE HER FINGERNAIL. I gasped like a crazy person who was just told her daughter will lose her THUMB. I just figured you only get one, and if it's gone, it's gone!! But alas, the doctor calmed my fears by telling me it WOULD grow back. But OMG! I can't believe I waited until my daughter got into the "she-might-lose-her-nuggin'-fingernail" phase of an illness/infection before mommy finally did something about it. I'm so mad at myself!!!!!

I know all of this is temporary, and she's not in pain so that helps, but still. What kind of mommy am I??

My poor, sweet LO.

Just Sayin'...

June 17th, 2011: Mishap of Epic Proportions. For those of you not interested in linking to that post so you understand what I'm talking about, here's the synopsis, along with a photo for evidence purposes:

I went to Trader Joe's. I dropped my iPhone. The screen cracked. Slightly. :o|

Earlier this week, just barely over one year later. June 27th, 2012:

I went to Trader Joe's. I dropped my iPhone. The screen cracked. Slightlyish. :o/

Obviously I cannot be trusted with the combination of Trader Joe's, an iPhone and a parking lot.

Grrrrrrrr!!!!!

That is all.

Still Hangin' in There... Barely

It's been another frustrating day in the PCICU. Chase had to go back on oxygen last night around 4:00 AM. He was taken off the oxygen again this morning around 9AM and is still currently off the oxygen. This last hurdle is proving to be a BIG one. In the meantime, hubs and I are beside ourselves with frustration. We have no control. We understand we have no control over Chase and his body's ability to utilize oxygen and we're okay with that. We're on his schedule. He's in charge. What we're really irritated about is having NO CONTROL over our circumstances. We're stuck in the PCICU. We've been "floor status" for 3 days, which basically means the only thing the nurses do is check vitals every 4 hours and occasionally play around with his o2 levels. It means we're ready for 7C. The private room where WE'RE in charge. In the PCICU, we're subject to a complete and total lack of control. We can't control the noisy beeping at the baby's bedside next to us. We can't control the cleaning lady that has apparently found the absolutely loudest way to open a new trash bag when emptying out the trash. We can't control the guy cleaning the floor with the loudest machinery known to man. We can't control the nurses who approach our bedside using anything but their "inside voice" while Chase is obviously sound asleep. We can't control the fact that apparently are no beds for us on 7C.

Just a bit ago I was at my wits' end. Chase was sound asleep in my arms. It was about 1:30 PM and he wasn't due to eat until 2PM. This has been a challenge in and of itself because we again have NO CONTROL over his schedule. We try to get him on an eating schedule since I'm nursing him (and this affects my pumping schedule), but we can't do anything when the night nurse decides to feed him every 2 hours and ends up dumping several ounces of my hard-earned breastmilk. Anyway, so he's not due to eat until 2PM and I'm doing my best to keep him on a schedule during the daytime while I'm here with him.

The staff starts prepping the bed next to us for a surgery case that will be rolling in soon. Hubs approaches a nurse to ask her when the case will come in so we could make sure I can be there to breastfeed Chase at 2PM. She said I needed to go ahead and do it now so she can clear the PC as the case will roll in at 2PM. So therefore I was forced to wake my sleeping, heart-surgery recovering baby up from a much-needed nap and force him to eat 30 minutes before he was ready to do so. This made me MAD. Then, because hubs happened to ask the nurse a series of questions, we stumbled upon the fact that the nurse we had all day (and for the past 2 days) was being assigned to the new case rolling in, and Chase would be turned over to the nurse covering bed 2. What this means is that while we would be gone (kicked out of the unit while the new surgery case rolls in), a totally different nurse (and one in training with her) would take over Chase's care, without so much as a single word to us or apparently, without much of a report from our existing nurse (as she was focusing on the new case). This made me MAD. The complete lack of control, the complete lack of communication, which could definitely have an impact on the care and well-being of our son, the apparent lack of respect we are receiving as parents...

I am MAD.