Mar
15
Early last week I was happily trading parenting war stories with my friend at work and I can’t remember exactly what I said but it was something to the effect of how I hadn’t had to clean up anyone’s barf in, like, months. The moment the words left my mouth I realized my grievous error and I instantly rapped my knuckles on the wooden surface of my desk but it was too late: a vortex appeared in the ceiling, a swirling black cloud emerged, and as I spiraled into the darkness I dimly heard the hollow mirthless laughter of the damned echoing behind me.
Which is all to say that of course both children became sick that very same night and of course I eventually found myself using a paper towel to pick chunks of semi-digested god-knows-what out of the bathtub. And may I just add that while a bathtub is certainly a preferable receptacle for human vomit than, say, the living room carpet, being confronted with RINSED SOLID MATTER is sort of a profoundly repulsive experience all on its own.
On Friday morning Dylan looked so incredibly godawful, like something dredged from the bottom of the ocean and heated in the microwave for a good ten minutes, that I dragged him to the pediatrician’s office, where he enjoyed a miraculous transformation the instant we walked through the front doors and he saw the office fishtank. “A FISH!” he blared, clapping his little hands with robust healthy glee, his death-pallor replaced by a pink-cheeked glow, his crusted-over slimenose suddenly clear and dry as a summer afternoon. “An’ ANNUDDA fish!”
He howled lustfully and with great vigor when the doctor touched him with the stethoscope, he thrashed like a wild bull while I tried to hold him down for the ear-inspection, and when I foolishly attempted to pry his angry little jaws open with my hand so the doctor could get the tongue depressor into his mouth, he nearly took my finger off at the knuckle.
All in all, he was PERFECTLY FINE, other than being kind of a raging ASSHOLE.
Eighty thousand doses of Motrin and a few sleep-free nights later, both kids seem to generally be back to normal, except for Dylan’s temperament, which I can only describe as fractious, in the sense that he makes me want to fracture my own skull with a ballpeen hammer. I don’t know if he’s got some residual ear discomfort or if there is an actual rabies-infected badger lodged up his colon or what the deal is, but living with him right now is sort of what I imagine it must be like to hang out with that Leave Britney Alone guy, if that guy also maybe had a chainsaw and his head could spin 360 degrees on his neck.
The child is a little touchy, is what I’m saying. It’s very relaxing to be around.
So let me be a lesson to you—do not under any circumstances break the cardinal rule of parenting, which is that when it comes to good-luck streaks of health or sleep, you NEVER announce how good things are going. Unless of course it’s been a while since you’ve de-puked a tub and you’d like to see just how sharp those skills still are.
Mar
10
Trivia: I know pretty much every word to the Bill Cosby “Himself” performance. I listened to it over and over at my grandparent’s house on their record player when I was a kid, and years later when I was working in a video store, it was the one constantly-entertaining-but-still-PG video I could pop in the deck and let roll on the monitors stationed around the shop.
The entire thing is genius but lately I’ve been thinking about the Brain Damage routine, which, well, if you haven’t seen it, please enjoy:
My god, this is a perfect depiction of our house.
Didn’t I just TELL YOU not to do that?
Uh huh.
What did I just say?
[mumble] You said what for not for to jump onna COUCH.
I’ve said this a hundred times, haven’t I? I said no jumping on the couch, that means I do NOT want to look in there and see you guys jumping on the couch. Do you understand me?
Uh huh.
(2 seconds later)
STOP THAT! WHY ARE YOU JUMPING ON THE COUCH?
*high-pitched chorus* I don’t KNOW!
Everyone knows children’s brains are formed of large chunks of Silly Putty and clouds of easily-distracted bees, but man, sometimes I can’t believe the effort it takes just get someone to carry out ONE directive. I feel like a deranged border collie, nipping and nagging at the heels of my kids in order to herd them towards the thing I’ve asked them to do: “Brush (yap!) your (bark bark!) teeth! Walk to the bathroom (yip!) NOW, and pick UP your toothbrush (nip nip) and—PUT DOWN THE TOY, and (yap!) GO BRUSH YOUR—WHY ARE YOU SITTING THERE AAARRGGGH (bark bark bark *overwhelmed piddle*)”
Anyway, I actually sort of have a serious question for those of you with preschool-aged kids. Is it pretty typical for the 4-5 age range to be, you know, not so great with the focusing skills? Like, I have a friend whose daughter is the same age as Riley and she’s reading entire books and coloring big awesome pictures and, well, in my house everyone’s much more about running pell-mell from one thing to another, and the reading skills are coming along but there is SO MUCH impatience and distraction and NO ONE WANTS TO SIT STILL and every drawing looks like a frenzied tornado because HEY LET’S RIDE BIKES.
I’m kind of exaggerating, but really, I am curious as to what age a person should start expecting and demanding better listening/attention skills from a child, because I really don’t know. I know some kids are naturally more inclined to quiet activities that involve concentration and some just want to fling themselves facefirst off the couch all day long (cough cough cough DYLAN), but when does the Cosby-described brain damage start to recede a bit?
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