WARNING: 18 and over only due to foul language
My entire life can be summed up in these three categories: the good, the bad, and the ugly. Every week, it seems as though the universe reaches way down in to it's giant cosmic hat and hands me one of each to deal with, just waiting to see which will get the biggest reaction. This past week was no exception.
THE GOOD
As you all know, I'm pretty damn fond of Tommy Oliver. Even when he's pissing me off, I still can't help but look at this man in pure awe over all the things he has accomplished in his life. This pass week, my smarty-pants hubby was flown down to New York to present along side some other super smart folk about new ways to approach archaeological projects and their completion. Pretty vague, I know. The point, though, is that this was an opportunity that found him. The man doesn't even realize just how amazing he is at his job! Between myself, my mother, or my father, I couldn't tell you who was more proud. It's not like my father needed another reason to brag about his son-in-law, but I can bet the farm on the fact that Dad has taken every opportunity to tell everyone he knows how proud he is of the Hubs. How could you not be?
THE BAD
You know how you hear stories from other parents about shit their kids do and you think, 'My kid would NEVER do that! It's just not like them!'. Don't kid yourself. Your little monster and my little monster are just alike, no matter how hard you try to convince yourself otherwise. In the middle of taping a birthday message for Billy the other night, Jackson started crying. He was picking at the side of his head, but considering the fact that he was getting over a head cold and was dead tired, I just chalked it up to him being cranky. As we finished up the video, his picking turned in to whimpering, which turned in to crying, then escalated to screaming. At first I was all, 'Holy over reaction, dude!', but then I got up and decided to look and see what was driving him so batshit crazy. To my surprise, when I bent his little head over I saw it. A Lego. In his ear. Jammed way in there. My initial reaction was to scream the oh so popular phrase known to all parents in this city, "What in the hell were you thinking!? Do you WANT to go to the hospital tonight?!". I should have known it wasn't going to help since screaming like a lunatic only proves you are, in fact, a fucking lunatic, but I couldn't contain myself. After years of saying, "Don't put stuff in your body holes EVER!", and hearing tales from other parents about kids using their orifices as fancy hiding places, I honestly thought we were safe from this particular medical emergency. Yep … I'm an idiot. As I frantically weighed the options in my head, imagining what it was going to like waiting in the Lightspeed Rescue Emergency Room with my screaming Lego cyborg child who would most likely cover the room in his own snot while harvesting all the germs of other children, it was quickly decided that I would attempt to dig that shit out myself. It was either coming out or getting pushed in further (which was going to happen anyways with the way Jackson was digging at his head), so I ran for the tweezers. The Hubs held his head as I started my careful decent towards my little child's brain with the sharpest pair of tweezers known to man, hoping and praying that no one moved a muscle. We all stood there around the supper table, the Hubs scared to breathe because at that moment I probably would have stabbed someone out of panic, Jackson making a weird squeaking sound that only happens after you've run out of fear and no longer know what sound to make, and I, getting ready to pass in my parenting card because somehow I missed the moment that my child jammed shit in his ear. What seemed like ten hours happened in a matter of two minutes. The Lego popped out like a ripe blackhead and all the world was right again. No wonder I have so many gray highlights these days … But hey at least he didn't shove it up his ass!
THE UGLY
We knew it was coming. Just as poor old John Snow knew the white walkers were coming to fuck shit up, I knew the germs were coming with the start of the school year. One week after Jackson started preschool, both kids started showing signs and symptoms of plague season. First it was the fever, then the sniffles, followed by the sore throat. As the sun began to set on the third day, there was an overwhelming sense of doom that hung over our mucus covered house. Sick kids suck, but sick kids at night are like getting three STDs at one time. It was going to get a whole lot worse before it got better.
Moments after the Hubs and I settled in to bed, we heard it. That low, muttled, "Mmmmwwwhhhhaaaaaaaaa" that turns it to the louder, more demanding, "WHAAAAAAAA!", which we all know is the universal signal for, "Bitch, you ain't goin' to bed this night!". And we didn't. Jackson weak stomach combined with a few hours of snot swallowing erupted in to a night-long parade of snot-vomit trips to the bathroom, bed patting in search for globs of hidden vomit surprises, and the anticipation of random wails from the children that would make us both leap out of bed faster than we did the night Apple released their watch.
The next morning, we all could have used a lot of coffee and concealer. During school drop off, I'm 100% certain that the other Moms were judging me and my child who appeared to have two black eyes. In a fit of cranky parental rage, all I could think was, 'Let's see how pretty you look when my kid spreads his demon germs to your little precious!' [But in all seriousness, the teacher suggested to all parents that we continue to send our kids to school even if they have the cold simply because the entire class room was full of sickness for the first few weeks. There was no avoiding this disaster.]
There is no way to avoid this stuff. Life is a big ol' stewing pot of the goods, the bads, and the uglies. The best we can all do is just hope the goodness outweighs the ugliness, and the badness doesn't discover all the other new, fun places to stick Legos!
Be kind, be caring, be kinky.