Have I ever mentioned that I love my kids? Has it come up once or twice? I cannot recall, on account of I’ve had about 3 hours of sleep all night, broken up into half-hour segments. I may have covered this before. But I do. I really, really… Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz….
Would anyone like some Earl Grey? I just drank a couple of mugs’ worth, and next I plan to immerse my eyeballs in it. (“Earl Grey? Really?” “You’re soaking in it!”)
Okay. I’ll just apologize in advance. My cohesiveness is still in bed. Weeping, no doubt.
I am so disturbed that my Google Ads are all about puking, now. I’d like to talk about something else, maybe get the ads to change, but there’s not much else to say. The puking, it is here. It is mocking me.
BUT. Half the fun is just waiting for the time bombs! Yes! Here I am calculating, as I absently pat the child crouched over the porcelain bowl and try not to focus on the fact that, you know, he appears to have just thrown up his toenails. Let’s see… ex got sick Saturday night. Monkey got sick Monday night. That means Chickadee should succumb Wednesday night, if not earlier…
… and there goes Thanksgiving. Fabulous.
And poor Monkey, he’s missing his Thanksgiving program today. He is heartbroken. Who will say “T is for Time to be together??” Perhaps the entire class will wander around, aimless and irrevocably splintered, because Monkey is not there to tell them they’re supposed to be TOGETHER!
In the meantime, do not mind me as my hands bleed all over the keyboard. They’re a touch dry, you know, as I’ve washed them approximately 7,391 times since last night. But I am not complaining! That’s what I tell Monkey as I’m spraying him with Lysol and swaddling him in saran! “I am not complaining, and neither should you!” Then I told him to stop that gagging and fetch me another beer!
Totally kidding. I am not consuming anything, lest I be the next to succumb.
Except that I need to take my antibiotics and this lovely arthritis medicine that is currently keeping my hands and knees working, and if I take those on an empty stomach they will eat a hole through to the outside, hence the Earl Grey. And a piece of bread. And a whispered prayer that I do not see said consumables again.
But seriously, who am I to complain? Is there anything more pitiable than a small child who is so miserable? And I have to tell you, Monkey is SO GOOD. I lost track of the bathroom trips last night but I didn’t have to clean up a single mess, first of all. He hustled himself in there each and every time. And each time he was in there, a touch of whimpering was the most complaining he did. “I don’t like this,” he commented between heaves, around 2:00 or so. “Oh baby, I know,” I answered as I rubbed his hot little forehead.
My favorite was the time I heard him scrambling into the bathroom and I arrived to find him pulling down his pants. “Mama, I think I have to–” and I swear to you that child was only a millimeter away from his bottom hitting the seat, and he executed a flawless ninja move wherein he stood, turned, flipped the seat up, and bent the other way all in a blink. Before I was even all the way through the door he’d hurled again, then executed the move again perfectly in reverse and plopped his rear down onto the seat.
Even the Russian judge gave it a 9.8.
So then he was sitting there, poor thing, spewing from the other end (sorry), and I’m helplessly sitting on the floor, patting him, offering water to rinse his mouth, generally feeling like a lousy mom who cannot soothe her sick kid, and for about half a minute, after he was done, we sat there in silence while he struggled just to remain upright in his fatigue. I was about to offer to carry him back to his room when he straightened up.
“Mama, what do you get when you put two trapezoids together?” I peered in him in the semi-darkness. Was he… hallucinating? Was I?
“What, honey?” I patted his cheek and he impatiently swatted my hand away, rapt with urgency.
“TWO. TRAPEZOIDS. You put them together, on the long sides. What does it make?” I started laughing. I couldn’t help it. It was the middle of the night, and if I’d spent my night as he had, the only thing I would be asking anyone would be if they had a gun to shoot me in the head. But he NEEDED TO KNOW. About the trapezoids. Naturally. I was still trying to catch my breath as he continued. “I think it has six sides. What’s that one called? With six sides? A sixagon?”
I think I snorted a little.
“That’s a hexagon, honey.” He brightened.
“Oh yeah! A hexagon! That’s what you get from those two trapezoids.” I muffled my remaining chuckles in his hair as I leaned in to give him a kiss. “What about an octagon? What do you need to put together to make one of those?”
“Uhhhhh… I’m not sure, baby. How about you try to go back to sleep, and we can work on that in the morning?” He agreed, reluctantly.
I tucked him back in with his blankie and his puppy and his bucket, and he yawned. “Don’t forget,” he whispered as I was leaving, “the octagon. Tomorrow.”
Of course, he seems to have forgotten it, for the moment. He’s doing his lump impression on the couch, becoming one with the cartoon channel, and counting the minutes between allowed sips of ginger ale. But I’ll bet he remembers before the day is out, because that’s just how he is.
I think I’ll keep him.
AH HA! It’s your fault! I forgot that Monkey was sick. So….somehow he came to Ohio in the middle of the night (between trips to the bathroom – those ninjas can be tricky!) and breathed his nasty puke germs on my SugarPlum. I just picked her up from school. At least I have someone to blame now. Thank you.
You may now return to your Earl Grey. I’m having Assam Melody, thankyouverymuch.
Ohhh, I’d take over for you so you could get some sleep, but uh, no. Let’s hope there are no more casualties! Poor Monkey…
You did it!! The google ads are about geometry books now!
Monkey is priceless.
I just can’t get myself to comment about it coming out of both ends at the same time, or the times that the kids can project themselves (their “inner self”) unbelievable distances and do their own interior decorating show (“Trading Mucous!” Coming soon!) or when the dog comes in and helps clean up the floor…
Awwww, the octagon thing is enough to make me just want to SQUEEZE him! Except I wouldn’t want to catch any germs. Or make him have to hurl again, what with all the squeezing.
Insensitive bitch that I am, I have had the Tadpole for 1 and a half years and he’s never had diarrhea or projectile vomited. Not even in the midst of teething. BUT, I know it is out there…lurking like a great beast waiting to devour my sanity. Thanks ever so for giving me something to look forward to. I’ll buy him a geometry book TODAY!
Two pentagons!
That was priceless. I love the things kids minds come up with when we’re sure their brains are too fever fried to think.
If he does remember the octagon question, I think the answer is two trapezoids and a rectangle. You kind of smoosh the rectangle between the long sides on the trapezoids.
It’s the mental puzzles and the illness that finally pulled me out of lurkerdom.
poor little guy. poor little mir.
Its the cute stuff that keeps us from chucking them out with the bathwater when they’ve been exploding from both ends all night. the trapeziod question is buried in his DNA programmed to come out at times like this.
I hope he feels better soon.
Yikes! Definitely cute, though it also makes me feel very bad about my own geometry.
I hope you shed the idea that you are a “lousy mom who cannot soothe her sick kid.” When he is older, he won’t remember how miserable he feels, but he will remember that you were there to take care of him and how soothing it was. I can still remember nights my mom did two or three loads of laundry because I was going through shorts fasther than a Congressman can spend a donation. Moms are God’s gift to the world and you seem to be an extraordinary gift to your children. Good luck if Chickadee’s immune system is asleep on the job.
I hope you shed the idea that you are a “lousy mom who cannot soothe her sick kid.” When he is older, he won’t remember how miserable he feels, but he will remember that you were there to take care of him and how soothing it was. I can still remember nights my mom did two or three loads of laundry because I was going through shorts fasther than a Congressman can spend a donation. Moms are God’s gift to the world and you seem to be an extraordinary gift to your children. Good luck if Chickadee’s immune system is asleep on the job.
Octagon huh? Try 2 trapezoids and a rectangle,or 4 triangles and 4 rectangles, or perhaps a hypocycloid of four cusps and a partridge in a pear tree.
Never mind. Just tell him grandpa is silly and will build him one.
Well, heck, now we know where he gets it from. His mommy from his grandpa. WOW.
I really hope I get a Monkey someday. I hope he feels better soon and that he gets to be sick in a cool color, cos that usually impresses the heck out of classmates.
I also want to say, your kid is REALLY smart. But you knew that.
The Russian judge robbed him. That kid is a 10 for sure!
My baby is home sick with a fever now (coulda shoulda washed her hands after reading your blog, I guess, heh)
Dogs on standby in case we reach Puk-con level 5…
Hope things have improved at your, er, end, Mir…
He is just too darned cute. And you are too a mom who can sooth her child. You knew what you get when you combine two trapezoids, didn’t you? He will remember that his mom cared enough to get up with him countless times during the night when he was sick.
Here’s hoping Chickadee dodges this bullet. You, too.