Gram's Poor Little "Sweet Pea!"

Do you have pet names or little nicknames for your kids and/or grandchildren?

My kids -the fully grown ones -had nicknames, sort of, when they were little and some of them still stick with them. Mandy's was always "Shrimp" or "Small-fry" but now that she is taller than me, neither of those apply. Her sister however loves to tease Mandy about being so slim so she often calls her "Lizard-Butt" -because the girl has no behind. (I'm not sure if she's really my daughter after all.)

My son I think has always been referred to -lovingly of course -as "Squirrel" and a few others that are generally left unmentioned. And older daughter -well when she she was around Maya's age, her Dad always used to refer to her as "Petunia Punkin Head" and every now and then, just the Petunia part slips out when talking to or about her.

Maya and my older grandson often get called little pet names too. Maya being "The Princess" and Alex is Gram's Prince. So when Kurtis came along the search began for a pet name for him.

After a lot of trial and error I suppose you could call it, Kurt has now officially become Gram's little "Sweet Pea."

Well, I'm here this evening to tell you that my little Sweet Pea is a tad under the weather this evening. He woke up Thursday morning with a bit of a very raspy cough so we kept him home from his pre-school program but today, no fever, no other complaints from him, we sent him to school.

However towards the end of the afternoon, his teacher contacted Mandy to tell her that he was rapidly losing his voice, was getting fussy and didn't want to eat either. All tell-tale signs of something coming on inside of him.

Mandy called the doctor's office and they said they could/would see him at 3:45 which meant, since Mandy was at work, that I was designated then to go pick him up at school and take him to the pediatrician's office then. That also meant doing some fast scrambling to make sure we had coverage here at the house to get Maya off her bus at 3:30 p.m. -when I would be 13 miles from here, loading her brother into the jeep to go to see the doctor.

Mandy was calling around to get things coordinated when I headed out to pick up Kurtis and as I was going out of town here, I passed a very familiar vehicle and the person driving it waved to me which gave me the impression then that it was someone I knew driving it.

And about 100 yards further down the road, it dawned on me who it was driving that vehicle and why it was so familiar to me then too. It was older daughter, Carrie, bringing her computer tower up for my next-door neighbor's son to work on eradicating a nasty virus the tower had picked up.

Well, I swung my jeep around in record-time then and high-tailed it back to the house where Carrie was just getting out of her car to go inside. I told her to call Mandy and let her know she would be here then to get Maya off her bus so we then had that problem all taken care of.

Next came my stop at Kurt's school and to get him into the jeep and on our way to the doctor's office. We got there at about 3:40 or so -plenty of time to spare there!

The pediatrician came in to check Kurtis and I must say I was amazed at how well AKurtis behaved today. He couldn't have been more angelic in his behavior than if St. Peter had been sitting right beside him!

Not a peep, no crying, no whimpering, no whining! Sure is a far cry from the outbursts that we all used to have to endure with Maya when she was this age range! Boy, did that ever make me happy!

The Dr. checked Kurt over -sore throat, cold, any poor breathing issues and the little guy was soooooo sweet, so well-behaved, I was pretty much in a state of shock over his good behavior.

The doctor tried to make a joke with Kurt -something about his sounding a bit like maybe he had a pony in his throat cause he was "a little hoarse" but of course, the attempt at humor was lost on Kurtis. He's not up to understanding innuendo or stuff like that just yet.

And when the Dr. began to check his heart and lungs, the exaggerated movements and breathing Kurtis did then was just too doggone comical! He really outdid himself in the cooperation dept there as he was taking such long, hard deep breathes the Dr. had to tell him to ease up a bit!

He even offered up a few comments to the doctor too -like "Is gonna be better, huh?" That one was said rather wistfully but the doctor agreed completely with him by telling him "You better believe it there Bub!"

Now if someone had told me 3-4 years ago that some day in the fairly near future, I'd find myself sitting in a doctor's examining room with a four year old who was behaving better some some grownups might do, I'd have been saying then "No way that will ever happen."

And if my Mom had been there to see this behavior, she -like me -would have been completely dumbfounded too because that most certainly was NOT the kind of behavior I exhibited for several years beyond the age of 4 or 5 in a doctor's examing room!

Such a nice pleasant switch from what is often the norm in small kids in doctor's offices, ya know!

And considering my head was throbbing a bit from the darned sinus infection that's been bugging me for the past 3-4 weeks now, I was even happier that Kurt was as well behaved as he was today.

The diagnosis though -just a bit of laryngitis -no fever, no strep throat -and his recommendation for the boy -Chicken noodle soup! (However, we had to forgo that idea because Kurt isn't to much of a soup person and if he does eat soup, it had better be tomato!

But anyway, the little guy is feeling a tad under the weather but at least it really isn't anything serious at any rate!