Parental Lessons

Children have been in my life forever, from my seven brothers and sisters to my three little kids of my own and I've discovered that I'm still very ignorant in the fine art of parenting. Here's two little stories to prove it.

BUCKWHEAT HONEY
Kayla had her 4-year-old check up and while we were there I had a quick question about Lily and a perpetual deep chest cough when she slept. He asked some questions and determined that it was probably just residual stuff from another illness. Then he suggested that we give her a teaspoon of buckwheat honey before bed. I gave him that look that said, "are you sure? I thought honey was bad for kids?" He must have read my mind because he followed up saying, "we're finding new, really cool uses for honey." He told me to get it at Target or in the health food sections of some big grocery stores. So, I picked some up, went home, and that very night gave Lily a spoonful of honey. Her little sweet tooth sucked down every last sticky drop of honey so fast that Winnie the Pooh would be jealous and that night she slept. We didn't hear anything out of her at all, whereas the past few nights she spent most of hit coughing herself awake so that she could cry back to sleep. I thought it had to be an odd coincidence that it worked, so we tried it again and we had two nights of peace, then three, and now without the honey the cough seems to be gone. So all of you parents afraid to keep pushing cough syrup down your babies throat...try Buckwheat Honey.

THE NOT SO DEAD DOG
This little tale is pretty sad, but an example of parenting at its finest. My husky Rorie started to get sick late last week and I originally thought that I had given her something from the table that didn't agree with her, but her health went downhill and I got up in the morning and found her in a seizure. I got her to the vet as soon as I could and he took some tests and determined that she was having severe renal failure and that her liver, kidneys, and pancreas were shutting down. He decided to give her some fluids and see how she was the next day. Well, that night he called and said that she wasn't doing any better and that he didn't expect her to make it through the night. I made the decision to go ahead and put her down first thing in the morning. Well, he didn't call me before church started and Jenni and I prepared the kids by telling them that Rorie had died. They reacted like children do when they loose their pet and we tried to move on. Then we got to church, my phone chirped that I had a voice mail, and it was the vet. He was calling to tell me that the dog was up and moving around and he wanted to give her a little bit longer to get better. I can't hardly believe my luck I have told my kids that the dog has died, the vet is telling me she isn't dead, and there is a very slim chance she might come home for me to explain to my kids that the doctor didn't lie about the death and that dogs don't get resurrected like Jesus. Now, Rorie is still very sick and will most likely not pull through this, she had one more test to undergo before I'll have to make another hard decision about her future. The moral of this story is to make absolutely certain that life cooperates when you are trying to teach your kids a difficult life lesson, because some things just shouldn't be retracted.