Hurricane Braden

I should've known, the second Braden walked into my office wearing this outfit... that it was not going to be a peaceful 15 minutes before the end of the day. We had snow this morning and he requested to wear his snow boots. So I let him, WITH jeans. However, according to his daycare provider, he decided he wanted to wear the shorts and refused to even bring his jeans home with him.


Within 5 minutes of walking into my office he interrupted a phone call, spilled two cups of water and was running up and down the hallway yelling and laughin. Kelsey was very helpful... refilling water cup# 1 which gave him ammo to spill cup#2 ( think intentionally) and then chasing him down the hall attempting to get him to stop, which just made him giggle and run faster. In the mean time, I'm supposed to be finishing up the end of my day and filing paperwork. Instead I'm stage whispering, "BRADEN, STOP IT, BRADEN, COME HERE, KELSEY, STOP CHASING HIM." I got him back into my office and closed the door. He then proceeded to climb into my bosses chair which Kelsey spun for him and he found highly amusing. I put a stop to that and when I tried to take him down he started shoving the chair into the desk and anything else obnoxious he could think of to do!

Needless to say, my filing did not get done and 4pm couldn't get there soon enough. The second the clock hit 4:00 or maybe it was 3:59, I grabbed his arm and dragged him to the door. Actually, he squirmed out of my hand and raced down the hallway giggling until he hit the entryway and then stopped and when I caught up with him and tried to hold his hand, dropped to his knees and became dead weight at which point I dragged him out the door and to the car.

I was slightly annoyed by the time we got into the car! However.... on the ride home I got my reality check... I had the radio tuned to 106.1 Kiss FM and they are currently doing a radio marathon to raise money for Childrens Hospital in seattle. I listened to two stories on the way home and had tears in my eyes. Even with Braden's extremely active and mischevious personality and Kelsey's sarcastic arguments and eye rolling (I don't know where she got that...), I am very happy to have healthy, active and "normal" children. It was sad listening about children who had cancers, tumors, cystic fibrosis, and many other unimaginable illnesses that took them to the hospital on a regular basis. The one that really made me stop and think was about a 4 year old boy who had Mitochondrial disease that caused seizures and affected different parts of his body, deteriorating the muscles. He was in a wheel chair and at 4 years old had never sat up on his own or even crawled. It was 3 and a half years before they even knew what he was suffering from. I'm sure his mother would've given anything to have her son running through her office causing a scene while I wished my son would just sit still for 5 minutes!