I started blogging 13 years ago. The magazine site where my early essays first appeared shut down years ago but I saved all of my work before the internet erased them forever. When my kids were smaller I’d share funny anecdotes about them -- selling their dollar store snacks in the cafeteria for big bucks, chatting for SO LONG in side-by-side porta-potties at a youth football game that lines formed waiting for them to emerge (#mortifiedmom), even kicking them out of the car and making them walk to school when they back-talked in the morning. Shrug, kids are pretty funny. But every once in a while I’d be forced to sing a somber song because, well shit, life is far from happy on many, many days. The following was one of those times, when the sun wasn’t shining so bright. When I unearth these moments in my past pages I’m going to add them onto my site as diary pages because I don’t want to forget the memories. And I want to remember that despite the lows, the sun comes back out … eventually. And always. xoxo

Eyerollingmom’s Diary Page — Wednesday, October, 1, 2008

Those who check in occasionally know I normally use this space for a light chuckle. Unlike many who utilize a blog for always beautiful, sometimes cathartic prose, I tend to go with the humorous details of my life. I find the funny in every day.

Still, there are my peeps that do check in to find out what’s new. (These are friends who are well aware that the photo I’ve posted is many years old. Hey, hey, hey — people on those cyber dating sites do this ALL THE TIME. Apparently using an old yet flattering picture is like, totally, cool….)

In any case, here we go: while her mom still navigates the residual emotional exhaustion of yesterday’s six-hours at Boston’s Children’s Hospital, my daughter donned her new (pink) scoliosis brace for the first time today.

I have resigned myself to the fact that I will be A) battling spontaneous tears (that come from said exhaustion) and B) battling my daughter for many, many calendar days to come.

No mother, nowhere, at no time, wants any doctor to ever tell her there is something not perfect with her child. The same initial wind gets knocked out of her whether she’s hearing her child has leukemia or asthma. Whether her child needs a new kidney, a new hearing aid or a new scoliosis brace. It’s just the way it is. Parents feel the same level of terror when their child goes in for any surgery whether it’s ear tubes or tonsils or transfusions. These are our babies.

However, being at Children’s Hospital is a tremendously humbling experience. While I wanted to wallow in the lousy turn my daughter’s life is going to take right now, I could not. For as we waited our turn in the brace shop I was drawn to the smiling faces of the beautiful toddlers who were being strolled in by their weary mothers. Each had on a brightly colored cranial helmet. I almost broke down in shame. How could I possibly be upset at my situation? There are far, far worse things in life, I truly, deeply know.

But today, away from the babies and awakened at dawn for brace patrol and an early morning meeting with the school nurse, I am sad. And at the same time ashamed at my sadness.

So I’m not feeling very humorous today. I can’t help it. It is awful enough being thirteen. Whether or not it’s a favorite color, pink doesn’t always go with everything.

*2022 Update: The exhausted mom turned out okay. The gal in the brace … even better.

Tina Drakakis blogs at Eyerollingmom and recently was featured in Huff Post. She appeared in the Boston production of “Listen to Your Mother: Giving Motherhood a Microphone.” Her work has been featured in NPR’s “This I Believe” radio series yet she places “Most Popular 1984” on top of her list of achievements. (Next would be the home improvement reality TV show of 2003 but her kids won’t let her talk about that anymore). A witty mother of four, she takes on cyberspace as @Eyerollingmom on Twitter and Eyerollingmom on Facebook. and @Eyerollingmom on Instagram.

Her collection of essays, A Momoir, can be found on this site (agent interest ALWAYS WELCOME!)

Missed the start of A Momoir? Begin here:

Chapter 1, Click here: https://tinadrakakis.com/2017/07/29/a-collection-of-eyerolls-chapter-1-yes-billy-joel-we-will-all-go-down-together/