Taking care of our body, mind, and spirit is critical. Sam has been under the weather for almost a week and we are all feeling the pain. In his mind, Sam thinks that people are sick for no more than three days and then they are better. His belief comes from a school friend's experience. His friend was sick, missed three days of school, returned to school on the fourth day. Pretty clear cut isn't it.

Angie has been working very hard to get Sam to blow his nose. For some reason, Sam refuses to take a deep breath and let it fly. Little brother Luke on the other hand, this pint-sized fella goes and gets his own tissue and just goes at it. Luke says that blowing his nose helps him feel better. Sam, he refuses to blow, sniffs all the time, sounds congested, and makes it miserable for everyone. At the drop of a pin, Sam will toss himself to the floor and do his best "fake" cry. The drama is simply endless. On March 13th Sam turns 8 years old. Most days, we acknowledge that his genius is balanced out by his maturity level being that of a child three years younger.

For as far as Sam has come, the lack of maturity is starting to be a very big issue. Although he tries to control his frustration, there are times when Sam simply can't hold it in. He will sob uncontrollably and toss his tall frame to the ground and cry. This recently happened in a very big way at Wal-Mart. Maybe he was just upset because he was at Wal-Mart instead of Target. We entered the store with plans on using their Valentine's Day money to buy a new, fun toy. The boys decided to pool their money to buy a pretty cool Lego set. Sam was adamant that he would carry his money from the Lego aisle to the checkout line. Somewhere between the 10 aisles (which took 15 minutes to get through) and checkout, Sam dropped one of his $10 bills. When he realized he lost some of his money he told Angie. I was in the pharmacy buying my daily requirement of Claritin-D and could hear something that sounded like a shrieking Sam about 200 yards away. INSERT EMPHASIS....yes, at least 200 yards away. It's Wal-Mart, the most obscene size store on the planet....and he was very far away from me. By the time I made it over to the family all heck was about to break loose.

I stood there and held Sam gently to my side while he buried his face into my ribs and screamed bloody murder. Actually, Sam screamed, "No, no, this is the worst day of my life." He screamed this over, and over, and over, and over, and over again. At one point, Sam left my side and dove to the floor. I smiled at Sam and told him to stand up and I would hold him. He returned to said position and continued.

Every person within a 200 yard radius was staring. The mother and son in front of us were in pure shock. Our very sweet checkout girl simply smiled at us and said it was ok. She got it. Enough said. Go Wal-Mart. This employee rocks! I stopped caring what others thought of these episodes many years ago. My skin is thick and my scars (literally) are confirmation that I have definitely seen worse days. My focus was on Sam and ensuring that he felt safe, secure, and respected. I know that any person that could control this and prevent it from happening would stop it immediately. Sam didn't want to meltdown and I knew that within a few hours he would be so apologetic that it would make you cry to hear him talk about it. Sure enough, it all played out as I had thought it would.

It's been a beating of a week. Our household is tapped out and all tanks are empty. I get asked why I don't blog everyday. It takes a lot out of me to replay some of our life experiences. Sometimes it's just too painful to be honest with you. Seeing your child struggle with the simple things of this world can really test you. I can blog and talk interactive & digital media 24/7, & I am extremely active on Facebook and Twitter. I try to keep a good balance of mind, body, and soul activities going so I stay fairly balanced. It's my hope that Sam's body heals this weekend and that he won't be sick anymore. Getting back to some normalcy would be nice.

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