Hunger

In this holiday season of excess it's easy to overlook some basics. There always seems to be delicious food around, and during the time from Halloween to New Year's we all have the sense that we're going to put on a few pounds. Even if we try not to.

Last night at dinner, Heather had made this awesome spinach and shrimp curry over rice - really really great (and amazing she had the gumption to actually pull that off, but that's another story). K & O were not so keen on it. I think most parents can remember when they struggled to get their kids to eat a full dinner and experiment with different foods. Kyle wound up only eating a little of the rice; they both switched to yogurt, but in the end Owen ate only 1/2 a yogurt. Just delightful.

About an hour after we put them to bed, Owen woke up screaming and scared that there was a tiger in his bed (vaguely reminiscent of the doggie in his bed) - he had been playing with a little stuffed tiger earlier that day. We got him settled and back in bed. After that, Owen proceeded to wake up and cry a little about every thirty minutes. We would go get him settled - and eventually gave him a little warm milk. He still was very unsettled, restless and would cry and fuss every 20-30 minutes or so.

Around 2 AM Heather and I started to become very very worried. He was not settling down and he was not sleeping (neither were we). We brought him into our bed (which we never do) and tried to get him settled. He was squirming and squirming; he would settled down for around 30 seconds to a minute and then fidget, and kick and sometimes moan. He would pull his legs up to his chest and then shoot them out straight. While he progressively got worse and it became apparent this was a lot more than having a bad dream, we became progressively more worried.

At 2:30 AM we turned on the light and woke him up fully. We asked him what was wrong. He said 'owiee in there' and pointed to the left side of his abdomen. In our sleep deprivation we couldn't figure out what that meant and of course jumped to the worse possible conclusion - appendicitis. Fortunately the appendix is on the other side of the body, but at 2:30, who could be sure. We asked him if he had another owiee, he pointed to his leg, his chest and his arm. In our worry we started to think he was having some type of full body system failure.

We asked him if he was hungry and he vigorously nodded his head. What did he want? "Grapes" and "Crackers" and "Milk and "Snacks". Ok - we all went quickly downstairs. Heather got him the requested "snacks" and I held him on the couch. She came back with the snacks and I fed them to him one at a time. After a bunch of grapes, a bunch of cheese and a cup of milk (the crackers went untouched), he said "I'm done" and tucked his head onto my chest. He sucked his paci and cuddled his lovey lion. He wanted to go to sleep.

We realized that he had been hungry - nothing more, nothing less. We put him in his bed, tucked him in and let him fall asleep. That was a complete relief - he was ok, just hungry.

It's not easy to forget where they came from. It's not easy to forget how special our family is. But sometimes there is a visceral reminder of the truth of a life history we'll never fully understand - of being hungry.

And we can't ever forget that even though they were only hungry for the first 8 months of their life, it never fully goes away.