Growing Pains...

Brayden is 4 and keeps us on our toes. The things this kid says makes us laugh. Earlier this week he and I were at Wal Mart. He came across a little something that he wanted and told me that it was free! I asked him how he knew it was free and he said, "Wal Mart is being really nice today. He said I could have one thing for free today so this is what I'm choosing. Isn't that nice of Wal Mart mom?"

My older kids have never suffered from Growing Pains. This little man though has recently started. Over the past few weeks he periodically complains of leg or feet pains.Yesterday was by far the worst. He woke up telling me his foot was funny. He hobbled around for a few minutes and finally started to drag his foot around. At first I thought that his foot was just asleep but this behavior continued for an hour or so while getting the bigger kids ready for school. After breakfast he started to complain that his foot hurt and eventually it became his leg too. Yesterday was not the day for this. I had to decorate the church in the morning for pack meeting later that night, I had 2 meetings after school, pack meeting and a basketball game to get Madelyn too later that night. Oh I was also asked to sit on the Board of Review for the scouts later that evening.  I didn't know what to do about his pain and now feel a little guilty for brushing it. In my defense it seemed to come and go all morning and he just didn't seem to be consistent enough about it to make me think something was wrong. About an hour before preschool he was in tears that his foot hurt again and this time it was both feet. I took his socks and shoes off and couldn't see anything. Thinking maybe it was his shoes I had him put a different pair on to see if that made any difference. It didn't seem to, he still  hurt. I told him that if his feet hurt that bad that he could stay home with me and miss preschool. He loves preschool and so even though he had tears he decided to go. Honestly he left, I kept going about my day and I completely forgot about his foot pain.

After school I was there for my meetings and a pre school aide pulled me aside to talk to me about Brayden. She informed me that he must have been in a lot of pain but when asked he didn't want to go home. For most of the day he dragged and limped around the classroom. He didn't run around at recess and chose to sit through most of it because his feet hurt. I felt terrible to hear that he was in that much pain and I had brushed it off earlier that day. An hour or so later his preschool teacher saw me and pulled me aside. She repeated what the aid had said earlier. She also mentioned that he had a real hard time walking to the bus. It was so bad she felt like picking him up and carrying him but he didn't want that and wanted to walk with his friends. He walked the whole way but was incredibly slow getting there.  She asked him if he had told his mom that his feet was hurting. He told her that he had. When she asked what I had said concerning his feet he responded, "get your socks and shoes on your going to school". I felt terrible!!!!!! He totally took that out of context. I told Miss Wendy that I was aware of his pain but that it was his choice to come to school not mine. I let her know that if he would have acted at home the way he seemed to act at school there was no way I would have sent him. She just laughed it off and said she didn't believe that I would send him to school if I knew the pain he was in. We've gotten to know each other over the past year and half and I wouldn't have done that. She did let me know that she felt that in the 3 hours she had him his pain had progressively gotten worse. 

When I got home Brayden said his feet were fine but that his legs hurt. I had him sit and rest his legs while playing with puzzles and any thing else I could think of to get him to stay off his feet. By bed time he wasn't complaining anymore. This morning he woke up, hobbled around for a few minutes and haven't complained since. When asked he says his feet and legs don't hurt. I sure hope we don't have to deal with this too often. It can't be fun for my little guy.