What's normal?

I kept hedging on posting this, but finally decided my own personal blog is the perfect place to be neurotic.

Lainie had a headache this morning...I think. She was crying, sobbing with a little scream in it, starting at 5 a.m. I thought she was just having a bad dream, so I brought her to bed with me. But, she kept crying every 15 minutes or so, and when I got up at 5:45 to feed N, she started just schreeching-sobbing, even though Jay was with her. Finally, at 6, I got her to respond to my questions, and she signalled that her head hurt. 20 minutes after some motrin and she was up and about.

For normal kids, this would just be a headache and a bad morning. For us, it means I'm on edge all day, waiting for that call that she's had a seizure. It means Jay teaches today with his cellphone in his pocket, because he's half the distance to L that I am. It means I called the school to let them know she wasn't feeling great this morning. It means I start wondering if the different generic medicine is causing problems.

It's just a headache!

But, normal for us has been different for a long time. A normal cough in someone else's child meant two weeks of nebulizer treatments for Katie. A normal earache in someone else's meant a blown eardrum for Maggie. And now, a normal illness in someone else's means to be on guard for a seizure. And even Lainie's seizures aren't normal. A tonic-clonic aka grand mal seizure lasts a minute, on average. Her shortest was 5 minutes, longest was 90.

BUT

Sometimes being abnormal is a great thing. Katie is abnormally kind and respectful. Maggie is abnormally smart. Lainie is abnormally capable. (Considering how long she was in a state of status epilepticus, she should have much more brain damage than she does. Thank you, God.) And Natalie, just so she's not left out, is abnormally smile-y and social.

We'll take our abnormalities and relish them!