My child is my greatest teacher

I am a terrible, horrible blogger. I try to stay away from blogs because I end up going to one to another to another and finding new blogs to follow. It's fun and I love it, but before I know it the afternoon is gone, or the evening, or both. I figure if I just don't look at all, I won't get sucked in!
This is definitely blog worthy though. I think so. It is one of those days that I don't want to forget the details or how I felt. Hmmmmm.......where to begin?

Mackinley loves to drink milk. She would drink it all day. So would her dad. When we are eating, he pulls out the glasses and gives me water, Macey water or juice, and Mackinley and him get milk. I have to buy 2-3 gallons of milk a week. I'm sure there's people out there that have me beat, but the milk is only going to 2 people. And one of them is 4. I think it's a lot of milk.

So one day Mackinley starts to complain about having stomach pains. It kept happening more and more frequently. I tried to keep a mental note of what she was eating, drinking, doing those days. Nothing really seemed to really stand out. After about 6 months of this I took her in and they told me that it was normal. She was probably just stressed from getting trouble about something is what they told me. I was a little irritated, but that was my answer. A couple of months later I took her in for something else and I asked them about it again. They ran some blood tests to check for Celiac's and some other things. She came back negative for the Celiac's, but they told me she has low iron levels. Welcome to the club little one! It's not a fun one to be in, but there are worse. I'm gonna blame my mom for that one. ;) So that didn't really give me any answers either. It started to get worse. She was complaining more and she started getting diarrhea with it. I knew there was something more going on.

I noticed that after she drank a glass of milk she would complain about a stomach ache. I took her off milk and told she wasn't allowed to drink it anymore. This seemed to help out a lot. She would still get tummy aches sometimes.....like after eating Kraft dinner. I felt so bad for her. Kids seem to be so much more littler when they are sick and not feeling well. She would come up to me and say "Mommy, I had a bad poo." It always made me laugh, but I tried to keep it stifled. My heart was hurting, don't worry. I'm not a horrible mother.
This week I went visiting teaching and dropped the girls off at a friends. When we got home later she had cramps again and more diarrhea. I asked her if she had drank milk that day. "No."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"Well, what did you have to drink?"
"Just eggnog."

I booked an appointment the very next day. At this appointment we got a resident. He was pretty good, but I wasn't too impressed when he told me that a lactose test isn't really necessary. He told me that as long as withholding milk was working than that she be good enough. Obviously he didn't know that milk was such a huge thing for her. It's not even that she likes it so much. It was a thing she had with her dad. It was something that bonded them. They don't have a lot, so I wasn't about to so easily give up on this one. I wanted to make sure that she for sure wasn't allergic to milk or was lactose intolerant. What if she's not and I take it away from her? I didn't really think it was very fair to her. So we booked the test.

She had the test today. I had mentally prepped her for it. She knew she was getting a needle. I didn't want to just show up and surprise her with it. She had to be fasting for it, so I figured she was going to be miserable because she was hungry. She was completely the opposite! We went in and they took her blood. She was a little apprehensive, but she didn't fight me or cry. I have a tube of Lidomax, so that helped as well. It was my 'magic cream'. She then had to drink a HUGE amount of.....something. She drank over 3 full glasses of the stuff. The lady was so impressed with her she gave her 5 stickers. Then we had to wait for an hour and take her blood again. Mackinley was a little bit more nervous this time and I had to hold her a lot tighter. She still didn't cry or fight, but you knew she wasn't liking it. They gave her 10 more stickers. After another half hour she had her last needle. She didn't cry or fight again and she went in knowing that this was the last one. She sat good and was much more relaxed. The lab tech had brought out 2 stuffed bears for her to pick out of. A pink one and a brown one. She told her to decide which one she would like while she was poking her. She of course picked the pink one, but they ended up giving her both! They were really great with her!

This is were my lesson comes in. The lady also gave her some papers with the last 10 stickers so she could put them on and have something to do while we waited. Mackinley went straight to work making cards. One for me, Macey, Jar, and then herself. She is always making me things and drawing pictures for me, but this really touched me. It was all I could do to sit there and watch her and not start crying in the middle of the waiting room for no apparent reason. I was so amazed that a 4 year old could do that. They were her stickers that she got for getting a needle. She was scared, that was her reward for being good and she made cards for everybody else first. So simple, yet so powerful. Why is it that kids are so amazing? She didn't even think anything of it either. She didn't have any ulterior motives. She was making us cards to make us happy because she loved us. She was serving us. I was definitely a very proud mom.

Only a little bit more to the story, I promise. I took her out for lunch where ever she wanted. She of course picked McDonald's. Jaron took Macey out hunting while we were out and he met us at Walmart. He dropped Macey off and headed into Lethbridge. After we were done shopping we went into the car and Macey saw Mackinley's new bears. Mackinley told Macey she could have the brown one. Again, she was so giving of herself. The brown one instantly got named Chocolate by Macey. Then she kept biting it and laughing, "It's chocolate!"
Mackinley named hers Tongue-y, because tongues are pink.

How I love my kids! I'm glad that we can have moments like these. I'm grateful for the example she has given me of service and love. Especially at this time of year. So, Mr. Resident Doctor, whether you deem that test to be necessary or not, I'm glad we did it. Without it I would never have gotten to have that experience with Mackinley. What a great kid I was given!

Love you Mackie!