Fair Warning

I change a lot of diapers. I don't mind it. My daughter is still fairly tiny, and someone changed mine when I was a young nugget. I also make a habit of washing my hands directly afterwards, and I recently learned exactly why. A few weeks ago I noticed that the right side of my right thumbnail appeared damaged. I found this immediately odd, since I recalled no incident that would result in such damage. I also noticed the skin around the cuticle was red and swollen. Although this was a tad disturbing, I did as I often do at the onset of signs or symptoms of injury or illness. I ignored it. A week later - worse. The whole right side of my nail was brown and jaggedy, and my cuticle had become red, swollen, cracked and excruciatingly tender. I glimpsed a fleck of poop on my thumb while changing a diaper (my ten-month-old is extremely uncooperative during diaper changes, and regularly kicks and flails about with her legs as if I was attempting to forcibly fasten flaming, thorny leggings to her chunky little legs). I quickly put two and two together, told my wife, and she made a doctor's appointment for me. The doctor took one look at my thumb and said I damaged my thumb. I told her my theory and she agreed right away. She prescribed the equivalents of amoxicillin and neosporin, then got to work on my thoroughly unappetizing thumb. First, a couple injections of lidocaine into the swollen skin around my cuticle. She prefaced these by saying "bee sting." If by 'bee sting', she meant intense, sustained, burning, scorpion-like injection - then she was completely accurate. I looked away as she leveled the retractable scalpel onto my thumb. She coaxed out as much blood and fluid as possible, then cleaned me up and applied a small bandage. Yikes! After three and a half days of oral and topical medication, the swelling has gone down significantly and I feel I'm on the mend. I'll be sure to take every last prescribed dose. More importantly, I wash much more thoroughly after every single diaper change, every visit to the bathroom, every several public doorknobs, handrails, you fill-in-the-blank. This has been a semi-graphic heads-up, from me to you. Sadly, "poop" is not nearly as harmless as it sounds. And, while I got off easy - with minor cuticle damage. It could have been much, much worse. I feel the need to go, now, and wash my hands. I recommend you do the same - if not right now - soon. Have a nice day :-)

The Lemonade Stand

We spread out a bunch of our unneeded stuff in two parking spaces for our community yard sale today. Beside us, in a patch of grass, my daughter and her friend manned their first lemonade stand. Two pitchers - one for pink lemonade and one for yellow - sat on a little princess table, with the girls perched on pink chairs behind it. We had a small supply of ones and quarters on hand for change, the girls had a mini pink princess bucket to collect the 25 cents per cup they were charging. Both girls sampled the lemonade, declared it delicious and were ready for business. They had their first customer before we did, and the trend was set for the morning. People wandered by in chunks and milled through our array, and none could ignore the little girls at the lemonade stand. Customers balked at paying 3$ for a dress, then they'd put a quarter in the girls' bucket and say "I don't want any lemonade, but you two are so cute! Here's a quarter." My daughter kept having to pee from drinking all the lemonade, but that didn't slow down the flow of coins to the lemonade stand. People would say "How much for this quilt?" And I'd say "Ten bucks?" They'd walk away without even making an offer. Meanwhile "You two are adorable. May I have another lemonade?" Perhaps it was because the girls had a script:
Hello, welcome to our lemonade stand.
Would you like yellow or pink?
Here you go.
Have a pinkalicious day!
Maybe we should have only tried to sell stuff that was yellow or pink. Actually, we had quite a bit of pink stuff, come to think of it. A tiny boy sat in his stroller and looked unimpressed by our display of puzzles, books and kids clothes. I told him I was sorry that we mainly had a lot of girls' stuff. He glared at me and had his mommy wheel him next door for some lemonade. Pink or yellow, his choice. We did sell some of our stuff and enjoyed hanging out with our friends whose daughter shared the lemonade stand duties with our daughter. But, come noontime, the girls had sold all but the last 5 cups of lemonade. They gave them away in a grand gesture to a thirsty family who had just bought our $200 tv for twenty bucks. I'm not jealous, but they had practically nothing to clean up and a pile of coins for their piggy banks. We went home with a bunch of stuff and a pile of crumpled, dirty dollar bills. We got some nice pictures, though. And there's always Goodwill. Meanwhile, the girls are already planning their next lemonade stand. Have a pinkalicious day!

Update

If you don't vote, the candidate you would least prefer to gain power is more likely to win. If you don't vote, who will believe that you care. If you don't vote, how will your complaints sound to those around you? If you don't vote, you will let down yourself and your children (and me and my children). If you don't vote, you are the poster child for being Unpatriotic. If you don't vote, you give up your place among human beings. If you don't vote, who will believe that you care?

Need a Plan?

No plans for next Saturday? Try this:
Wake up with plenty of time to leave to go wherever you go on Saturday, but still end up rushing to get everyone and everything out the door. Buckle the kids in, jump in and hear nothing when you turn the key, since the battery is dead. One of you hook the jumper cables up from your other car and start those engines, while the other calls to say you'll be late. Fill the garage with exhaust fumes while trying a few times before the car revs to life. Then you're off - keep the windows down to help get rid of that nasty exhaust fume haze. Park the car and enjoy whatever that next thing is, then pack everyone and everything back into the car in time for it not to start again. Now begin scouting around to ask friendly people for a jump. Enjoy being turned down by a number of people because these are progressive times when we can look everything up on our phones, but we still don't trust anyone. Finally someone from a throw-back era agrees to give you a jump. Again, it doesn't spring to life the first time, but it cranks up after a few minutes. Then take a breather and let Saturday run it's course for a bit. Now it's time for a couple of errands right before nap time. Notice the car being jerky, then having no pep, then coasting to an almost stop. Before it stops, jump out and run alongside as your partner slides over into the driver's seat. Now start to push. That's right. While you're pushing your whole family and everything in your minivan, have a conversation about your most current plight with your spouse who is steering. Encounter a hill and lean further and further forward using all your strength until the last ounce has your face inches from the pavement and your partner senses your defeat and lovingly applies the break. Notice nosey/helpful dude who offers to give you a lift to the nearest gas station. You have nothing to carry fuel in, but he suggests a water bottle with no long nozzle to dispense gasoline. Know that won't work, but go ahead anyway. Leave your stranded spouse and children in the hot sun and climb in the cramped back seat and listen to Bill Jasper and his fiance, Rhonda bicker in an honest, yet uncommitted way. Calmly answer your spouse's semi-panicked text inquiring if you'll ever see each other again. Arrive at the gas station, buy a conveniently over-priced container and fill it with exactly $6 worth of gas. Cool because you find out later that you only have $6.35 in that particular account. After returning to your family, pouring the gas in the tank while spilling as little as possible - don't be truly surprised when the car still doesn't start. Call your roadside assistance peeps, navigate an excruciating phone menu, at long last, talk to a person long enough to explain every single aspect of the situation before trying to star the car one more time - this time successfully. Now head to the gas station to fill up your large tank at a time when gas prices are higher than they've been in a long, long time (attempt to use the card on the account with only 35 cents left before using another account). Now your battery is adequately charged, your tank is full and you're not taking anything for granted, but you agree with each other that having cell phones is pretty darn handy - even if you don't have the fanciest phones or the fanciest plans. Now you ought to have enjoyed sufficient physical exhaustion from pushing your car with your whole family in it, and suffient psychological stress from having endured two dead batteries and one empty gas tank in a single day, - so you should be in good shape to be able to really relax and enjoy the rest of the day. Unfortunately you're slated to attend a birthday party with a giant bounce house full of sugar crazed kids who you must keep from inadvertently squashing your somewhat smaller kids. Lots of fun! Oops, you weren't able to squeeze in naptime, so prepare for a cranky bed time. That's cool, because maybe SNL will be a new one. If you're lucky you won't fall asleep before or during the best/only decent sketch (it's okay, you can watch it online later in the week). Cheers!

Men At Play

*In response to my wife - Emily's post entitled Dadly Men*

I admit it. I like to play. I'm not referring to joking around, fooling around, being silly or playing specific games. I'm talking about true play. I do it because it still comes naturally to me (Keith Johnstone refers to adults as "atrophied" children). Although I'm an adult, I've refused to put away ALL childish things. I'm also highly aware of the mental and social health benefits of real, creative play. As long as I can drop traditional rationale and slip into a bout of improv make-believe at any time, I know I'm still mentally healthy. I suspect this is somewhat rare in adults and kids recognize it, although they may not be able to put their finger on it. Friends are one of the most (if not THE most) important aspects of life. If our first friends are people with whom we play, then why ever take the playing out of the equation? Science has shown that true creative play is excellent for keeping the mind healthy. I'm just lucky that it's a habit of mine.

Ghosty

Why is it frightening to encounter your own child in your own house? I was brushing my teeth last night, when I looked into the mirror and saw a child in a gown clutching a small, ragged stuffed animal. I didn't quite pass out from fright, but almost. Of course it was my own daughter standing there in the full light of our bathroom wearing her Disney princess pajamas. So why did she give me a heart attack? I know her well, she lives in my house. I see her everyday and can expect so see her about the house at any given time. Why would I practially choke on my tooth brush and simultaneously spew tooth paste into the sink? I suppose it could be because at that particular late hour, I assume that Zoe is fast asleep in her own bed where I tucked her in hours ago. To see her suddenly appear without a sound right beside me is understandibly startling. So why do I never get used to it? I'll be just nodding off in bed and hear a cry from upstairs. I reflexively throw off the covers, trot up the steps, turn the corner and - Yikes! She's standing in the middle of the hallway clutching her lovey and wearing her little nightgown. Why does my own adorable daughter appear to me - instead - as a ghostly apparition from the mysterious past? I was actually on my way up for the express purpose of seeing her and comforting her, yet encountering her in the hallway is more like an ambush than a reunion. She's my own offspring, not the undead - so why does my heart skip a beat while I suck in my breath out of fright? I just can't explain it. The rational mind knows that a three-year-old could conceivably be nearly anywhere in the house at any given time. Nonetheless, there's something about encountering a child after dark - even if she's your own - in a nightgown holding her blanky. She goes from precious to horrific with no effort at all. She obviously, knows something I don't. Meanwhile, anytime I sneak up on her, she simply stares at me, completely unphased - as if to say "what are you doing?"