The disease that afflicted Golden Boy has made a belated and therefore unexpected charge through the rest of the family. The Bug started shooting fire from her bottom at day care on Wednesday. Liz had to pick The Bug up and bring her home because the day care provider, Second Mommy, does not put up with that kind of behavior. While The Bug has, thank the Gods, eschewed the vomiting, the flow of fecal water from her anus has been unending. It has become an unbearable burden upon our household. Liz even uttered “I really don’t like her.” Words that haven’t been heard around these parts since before The Bug achieved metamorphosis about eight months ago.
Liz, meanwhile, came down with full blown symptoms on Friday. She heaved her fireworks into her sink in the master bath. Once she went down, the weekend was lost; hardly anyone noticed when I was felled on Saturday. That is how our weekend became awash in vomit and feces.
In truth it has been more than a weekend. In the past ten days I have had to strip my clothing twice because they were soaked in one bodily fluid or another. Friday night I pulled, as she was screaming, The Bug from her crib, without turning on the light, only to discover that she had been literally rolling around in her own shit.
In truth it has been more than ten days. In the past three and a half years I have been peed on, puked on and crapped on. I have been handed handfuls of snot as if it were an empty food wrapper. (“Here, daddy.”) I have found a bottle of expressed breast milk in a diaper bag two weeks after it was put there. I have cursed the female anatomy as I have had to change a blow out diaper around it. I HAVE BEEN THROUGH POTTY TRAINING!
God help me, I have to go through it again.
Dear reader, if you are childless, know this: If and when you have children it will be one of the most disgusting endeavors of your lifetime. It begins with morning sickness and never stops. Forever and ever.
Amen.
So on Friday Golden Boy and I drove down to Santa Cruz in advance of Mongolita‘s wedding. We met up with The Woman Who Shall Not Be Disparaged and The Bug at the rehearsal lunch. It was a joyous occasion. The Bug gave me a lingering look and then turned her head away, as if to say “Oh, it turns out you’re not dead after all.”
After the lunch I took Golden Boy and The Bug to Grandmother’s house while Disparaged did Mongolita’s bidding. Golden Boy and The Bug played long and hard until Disparaged showed up to take The Bug back to The Commune. The original plan was for The Bug to stay with Golden Boy and I at Grandmother’s but it seems only The Bug could guarantee Mongolita’s survival through the night. So off she went.
I put Golden Boy to bed around 8:30 and returned to the living room to chat with Grandmother. All was well until I heard a horrible shreak at 10:30. I sprinted back to Grandmother’s room, where Golden Boy and I were to sleep, and flung open the door. There, on the bed, was Golden Boy on hands and knees. A horrible long strand of gut juice was dangling from his bottom lip and whipping over a large crater of vomit which was squarely centered in Grandmother’s bed.
I flew over to the bed, grabbed the boy by his pits and lumbered toward the bathroom. We didn’t make it. At the door to the bathroom spew went bouncing off my shoulder, cascaded down my back and landed on my legs, the floor and the wall. In the bathroom I held the boy over toilet. He just shrieked; nary a drop of vomit hit the water.
Finally, the shrieking stopped. I put the boy down and looked over my clean shoulder at Grandmother who was now standing the doorway to the bathroom making all of the appropriate grandmother sounds. She cradled the boy while I stripped.
It took about twenty minutes to get everyone and everything (mostly) clean. Which was just enough time for the vomitting to begin again. Having been through this before I knew what Golden Boy would want the most was a vomit receptacle. I sat with my boy on the bed while he puked into a bowl and howled. In the lulls Golden Boy would rest his head in my lap and Grandmother would swap out the bowls. This continued in 20-40 minute intervals for two and half hours.
Grandmother called it: We had to take him to the Emergency Room. Golden Boy and I agreed. So I strapped him in and we drove off to the hospital.
To be continued … after The Bug’s birthday.
The Woman Who Shall Not Be Disparaged and The Bug have now been gone for two days. It’s starting to get grim. Dinner on Day 1 was one of the most silent epochs of my life. It turns out that all of that noise I thought the “kids” were making was all coming from The Bug. Golden Boy is rather … quiet. Or perhaps he’s just sad from missing his mommy.
Whatever the cause, I decided that what we needed was more county fair. Pig racing! Cotton candy! Helicopter rides! Corn dogs! Overgrown fruit! Moldy pies! Things we’ve never seen before:
GB: What’s that daddy?
Me: That is a mechanical bull. People try to ride it as long as they can without falling off.
GB: That mechanical bull is funny. It looks like a funny horse. Two butts and nooo head.
As I mentioned in a previous post The Woman Who Shall Not Be Disparaged’s sister, Mongolita, is getting married. Since the big day is this coming Saturday, Disparaged and The Bug are spending the week helping Mongolita get ready. (I hear The Bug’s primary tasks are to look cute and let ChocoLocoPerrito lick her constantly.) Thus, Golden Boy and I have been left to fend for ourselves in this big bad world.
For four days.
I was left with strict instructions to not let the boy die. Golden Boy was left with strict instructions to take good care of me. So far the boy is, in fact, not dead. As for me, well here’s what I heard (more or less) on day one:
- “Daddy, you need to put on my shoes.”
- “Daddy, you need to tie your shoes.”
- “Daddy, you’re going to take me to daycare, right?”
- “Daddy, tie your shoes.”
- “Daddy, drink eight glasses of water.”
- “DADDY! TIE! YOUR! SHOES!”
- “Daddy, you need to schedule a colorectal exam.”
- “Daddy, tie your other shoe.”
- “Daddy, you’re going to give me a snack in the car, right?”
So we’re doing just fine here, thanks.
On Friday The Woman Who Shall Not Be Disparaged and I took Golden Boy and The Bug to the Alameda County Fair along with some friends and their four-year-old son. It is a fantastic fair, although it lacks a certain rustic quality that the fair my home county throws every year. While that one is quaint this one is quintessential. And huge. So huge that the place is crawling with fair personnel driving golf carts. Walking around the fair grounds is very much like playing a life size game of Frogger.
We did the usual things. We ate too much bad food for too much money. (By bad I mean gooood.) We rode on rides of questionable repair. We moooed at cows, we bleated at goats, we baaaaed at sheep. Then after all of that we settled down to enjoy a fireworks show.
The show started late, which was annoying. Especially with a three-year-old pondering the sanity of sitting on a tarp on top of asphalt in the complete dark in 95 degree weather. I don’t like arguing with Golden Boy (because he usually wins), particularly when he’s right. However, the show did eventually start and Golden Boy and The Bug were all coos and ahs. In fact The Bug loved it. She was bouncing with excitement, enthusiastically grabbing the hair of any nearby head and jerking it back and forth.
Yes, it was quite wonderful. That is until Golden Boy popped up and declared “I have to go potty.” Now, I don’t know about you, but when I’m presented with the choice of watching fireworks or holding another guy’s penis while he pees in a toilet, I generally choose the former. Can’t you just go in your pants, I thought. But of course he couldn’t. Oh no, not Golden Boy.
So off he and I trudged, more than a quarter of a mile, to the closest bathroom. There Golden Boy learned about trough urinals and I learned to loathe potty training just a little bit more.
This morning I awoke to Golden Boy’s voice complaining about The Bug getting at his stuff. I then became aware that The Bug was flailing about on the bed in an attempt to rummage through an eclectic collection of crap at the edge of the bed. All that was holding her back was my hand around her chubby ankle.
How my hand came to be wrapped around her leg is not clear. Apparently The Woman Who Shall Not Be Disparaged had already deposited The Bug with me on the bed. My brain decided that only my right hand need be awake to supervise. I am comfortable with that decision.
As The Bug’s efforts came to fruition, her food-chuckers clasping onto some random treasure, Golden Boy went all squeally. The noise caused me to raise my head to see if there was in fact a genuine crisis. Of course, there was not. As my head fell back onto my pillow my brain registered that among that pile of Golden Boy’s treasures was my mouse pad. The one that says “Golden Boy’s Daddy” on it. (Not “Golden Boy”!)
Now as I write this post, instead of playing my game, which requires the mouse pad, I have no idea where that mouse pad is and I’m about ready to get all squeally about it.
Golden Boy has been a bit tarnished as of late. Mopey. Moody. Depressed even. Which really isn’t saying a lot because Golden Boy’s worst day is probably on par with your best day. Even so, pain is relative; the boy needed some lovin’.
So yesterday The Woman Who Shall Not Be Disparaged took The Bug to her sister’s bridal shower. (TWWSNBD’s sister, not The Bug’s sister. The Bug doesn’t have a sister. At least not any that I’m legally required to support.)
Meanwhile, Golden Boy and I had a Man Date. We ate questionable cuisine. We watched some Street. We played with dinosaurs in the bath tub. We left more water on the floor than went down the drain. We ran through the house in our underwear. We killed a deer and ate it raw. We yelled lewd things at random women walking down the street. We even discovered that with a little three-year-old ingenuity and brute strength that ten quarters can fit in my belly button. (Sideways. They didn’t even rattle when I laughed. Too tight of a fit.)
It wasn’t the best night ever, but it sure did polish the boy up right. As we snuggled (in a manly way) before bed we had the following conversation which summed up the evening:
Me: Hey, bud. I had a lot of fun playing with you tonight.
Golden Boy: [Awkward silence.]
Me: Did you hear me bud. I really had fun. You don’t have anything to say?
Golden Boy: [Smirking] I don’t respect what you’re saying.
Me: [Guffaw!] You are a Monkey boy!
Golden Boy: You are a DONKEY boy!
There are seminal moments in life. Turning 32 is not one of them; even if it is 100000 in binary. Neither is starting a blog. Or even buying a house.
Recently, before heading off to daycare, Golden Boy asked if he could put some lotion on my feet. I am sure I could have found many reasons to deny such a request. None of them were good reasons. So I sat down and held out my feet while my three-year-old son lubed them up. The stuff smelled like a girls locker room, sweat and perfume, and he put enough on that I nearly slipped on the pile carpet.
I kept my mouth shut. I knew what this was: The first time a son rubs Peppermint & Plum scented Shea Butter Heel & Callus Balm on his father’s feet is definitely a seminal moment.
