P is for patience

Today's preschool lesson was suppose to be about patience. We had a life lesson in patience instead of talking about the virtue. Connor has been sick for a few days. He woke up Saturday with a red, puffy eye (no goop, though) and by Sunday afternoon had a fever and wasn't feeling well. He did fine for a couple of days with Motrin, acting like nothing was wrong when it was working, and like he really didn't feel well when it wore off. Today I thought he'd wake up feeling better. He slept a little better last night than the previous two. But today he seemed to be sicker. His eyes were really hurting him and his fever was not breaking, even with the Motrin. So even though my gut told me that it was a virus and would pass on it's own, we bundled up and braved the cold and went to the doctor. It's a virus and will pass on it's own. Just as I thought. But I'm still glad I went. Better safe than sorry, right? And it's just good to know. Actually it's good to know that my motherly intuition (based on past experience) is right.

Here's where the lesson in patience comes in. We waited for 10 minutes at the doctor's office. Not too long. We handled that fine. Even Connor who was feeling awful. Then she checked him out, did a strep test, told us it was probably just a virus. But she still wanted us to go down the hall to a pediatric opthalmologist to have him look at Connor's eyes. She thought it was viral, but wondered if because his eyes hurt so badly that it might be something else. I wasn't thrilled about the prospect of going to another doctor's office, but she called and they said to send us over, so I thought they must have time to squeeze us in.

When we got there, there were a couple of little girls waiting, obviously ahead of us in line. One mom was talking to her daughter about how long they'd been waiting. I thought, Oh, great. We're going to be here forever! And we were there for quite a while. We waited there for almost an hour. But Connor was great. Abigail was great, so entertained by the toys. I felt fine. Sometimes in these situations it's easy to be bothered by how long you're waiting, to get restless, to be impatient. But the three of us were models of patience. I'm especially proud of Connor who was feeling awful and really just needed to get some rest, but sat on my lap and even played nicely with Abby for a while. What a patient little boy!