Gross but encouraging

Davis had a cold, which shifted into viral induced asthma.  So, he looks and sounds quite awful.  Which is a step up from frightfully congested and coughing up a lung.  On the mend, he went to school yesterday after being away for more than a week.  I picked him up at noon and we went out for sushi.  We talked about Minecraft, or rather he told me all about his house in the hill and how many diamond and gold blocks it would take to make a wedding ring for a potential wife if he ever wanted to get the mod? that would afford him interaction with villagers, but he finds them too scary looking so he is content on his own.  And did you know that it is quite hard to be a vegetarian in Minecraft?  Anyway, I learned that and many other weird and wonderful facts about his new life's passion.  The most interesting part of our conversation came when I asked him about how his morning went.

"We'll, the SSW (Student Support Worker) had super terrible breath today!"

"Oh," I said.  I've heard plenty of feedback about my and everyone else's body odor from my two olfacorily enhanced boys.  They are very sensitive to smell.  (Ben told me in the school lobby the other day that he knew I had entered the building before he turned around because he could smell me- because of the same perfume I've been wearing since he was born, he says.  Makes me sound on par with a teenager in love with his Axe Body Spray.)

"We were sitting at the same table doing math, but I had to get up and walk around, to get a break from the awful smell," he said.  "I hope she didn't know why I got up."

"But I can still smell her in my nostrils."

"Interesting," I said.

"It smells bad, like a foreign Chinese food restaurant where somebody was murdered."

He blew his nose.  He stared, looked at his Kleenex, blew his nose again.

"It's me," he said.  "It's my snot."

"Pardon?"

"It wasn't even her, it was in my nose the whole time," he said musingly.

"We'll, as disturbing as that is, I am really impressed that you didn't say anything to her about what you thought was her intense and disgusting smell.  That may have hurt her feelings."

"I know... I didn't want to make her feel bad, so I just got up and moved away until I could stand it again... But then it stayed with me..."

"That is pretty funny," I said, smiling.

"Well, it's informative anyway," he said, nodding.

"You handled that very well," I said.

"Thanks," he said. "I still smell stink everywhere I go."

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I am proud of him for trying to be sensitive to her feelings by not accusing her of smelling like death and bad Chinese food.

Lemonade

Ever had a really long day, and you are so tired and you just want to go to bed, and there is still so much to do, and it's midnight which makes it technically tomorrow, and time is running out on the deadline for the inspiring new initiatives your new boss has stipulated you propose to him or you will lose your job, one of your children has a double ear infection, the other two are coughing and calling for you, your wife is crying while updating you on all the rotten things that happened this week that you can do nothing about, including that your son accidentally broke her computer while trying to do something nice for her by updating her system and she is expecting you to be a miracle worker and fix it before her 9:00 am meeting, and you haven't eaten since lunch, and you saw a picture of yourself today that made obvious to you that you are losing your hair...
Anyway, this is a sampling of my husband's day last week, which put him in the state of mind to heavily sit and slump, and say to me:
"They say when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.
But you can't make lemonade out of urine."
We both laughed, and felt better.

Reminder to me

We've all had times in our lives we would like to forget.  Some memories are super embarrassing or painful.  Some just remind us how dumb we can be.  We need to give ourselves and each other a break.  We all make mistakes.
Something I say to myself that applies to everyone, especially kids with exceptional strengths sometimes hidden to the untrained eye:
"Just because you've seen me at my worst, doesn't mean I don't have a best."
One of the boy's teachers forgot this and it made for a very hard year.
Cheers, to all the teachers and student support teams who see the golden nugget in every kid.  And here's to the resilience in all of us.