Thursday - TLC for Mom
May. 4th, 2006 02:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ninanevermoreToday on my drive into work, I was thinking about how the same stomach virus that makes a year old boy just slightly sick for a day or so can leave a grown adult weak as a kitten, laying on the couch for 2 days while the toddler who brought the bug home in the first place completely dismantles the house because mom is too weak and sick to get up and stop him.
I got to spend the last two days at home with my son, but it wasn't exactly quality time from my point of view. From his point of view, it was a very productive couple of days. He emptied drawers that we have not installed safety latches on yet. He figured out how to thwart safety latches on cabinets that do have them. He removed all of the plastic ware from the kitchen cabinet and covered the kitchen floor with Rubbermaid bowls and lids. He handed me dozens of items that I didn't even learn we owned, like the can of butane that he presented to me after lunch.
"Why do we have a can of butane?" I wondered. It didn't matter why we have it, though, just that we do. Small children love dangerous and poisonous things, such as double A batteries that fit so nicely in their mouths to suck on like pacifiers filled with deadly acid, and cans of butane. It's not that these items are just laying around the house within easy reach. It's that a toddler can reach places that aren't so easy and find things that you had no idea existed.
"Ewrh," my son said as he handed me the butane.
"Thank you," I said, actually finding the energy to rise from the couch and put the butane in a place that he will not be able to reach until he is old enough to understand the meaning of the word "arson." My refusal to return the can was met with some displeasure.
"Ughh!" he protested, and frowned.
"I'm sorry," I told him, "but that belongs to mommy. It's not yours."
"You suck," he said.
Okay, he didn't exactly say it out loud, but his expression conveyed the message clearly enough, as did the wail that he let out that sounded a little like an air-raid siren. After he finished sounding his siren, he went back to looking for more things that I didn't want him to mess with.
I crashed back onto the couch, closed my eyes and listened to him pull out toys. Parts of the living room floor were not yet covered with toys, and he believed that this needed to be fixed. He was very industrious, and when I opened my eyes in little slits to peak around the room, I saw a sea of plastic animals, trucks, musical instruments, balls and blocks strewed about. It looked like a Toys-R-Us store had exploded. After he finished, he came over to the couch to see if I could be brought around. My head was turned to the side, so he pushed it to an upright position. I let it flop back over. He tried again only to get the same result. Hmmm. Mom seems to need nourishment to give her energy. I felt him press something small and hard to my lips. I tasted the offering and discovered it was a stale Cheerio.
"Thank you," I told him again. I took it from him and searched for someplace to put it. In a valiant effort to make it into the office, I had actually gotten dressed yesterday morning, only to discover that there was no way in hell that I had the energy to drive anywhere. I was still dressed in my work clothes by the afternoon, and neither the skirt nor the blouse I had on had pockets. I slipped the Cheerio into my bra. It was either that or eat it, and I can barely stomach Cheerios when they aren't stale. But my son simply does not accept no for an answer when he has a present to give you. Fortunately, bras are great storage devices, and not just for breasts. Later that evening when I undressed and took off my bra, several stale Cheerios, an equally stale Teddy Graham and a toddler-sized plastic spoon would fall to the floor of my bedroom. At one point in my life, spare cash, my driver's license and matchbooks with a phone numbers scrawled on them have fallen out of my bra at the end of an evening. I pondered about how things are different now before I drifted off to sleep.
Today, I am feeling better. Jeff dried up the sea of toys when he came home from work, and they will stay contained in the banks of the toy box until our son spills them back across the floor this evening. My son is back in daycare, no doubt telling the other toddlers about the things you can get away with when your mother is passed out in a semi-stupor on the couch. I am back at my work computer, typing up a blog entry on company time. And somewhere in my house, the rest of my son's secret stash of Cheerios is growing yet staler, waiting for the next time I need to be revived from the living room couch with a slightly soggy bit of toasted-oat goodness.
I got to spend the last two days at home with my son, but it wasn't exactly quality time from my point of view. From his point of view, it was a very productive couple of days. He emptied drawers that we have not installed safety latches on yet. He figured out how to thwart safety latches on cabinets that do have them. He removed all of the plastic ware from the kitchen cabinet and covered the kitchen floor with Rubbermaid bowls and lids. He handed me dozens of items that I didn't even learn we owned, like the can of butane that he presented to me after lunch.
"Why do we have a can of butane?" I wondered. It didn't matter why we have it, though, just that we do. Small children love dangerous and poisonous things, such as double A batteries that fit so nicely in their mouths to suck on like pacifiers filled with deadly acid, and cans of butane. It's not that these items are just laying around the house within easy reach. It's that a toddler can reach places that aren't so easy and find things that you had no idea existed.
"Ewrh," my son said as he handed me the butane.
"Thank you," I said, actually finding the energy to rise from the couch and put the butane in a place that he will not be able to reach until he is old enough to understand the meaning of the word "arson." My refusal to return the can was met with some displeasure.
"Ughh!" he protested, and frowned.
"I'm sorry," I told him, "but that belongs to mommy. It's not yours."
"You suck," he said.
Okay, he didn't exactly say it out loud, but his expression conveyed the message clearly enough, as did the wail that he let out that sounded a little like an air-raid siren. After he finished sounding his siren, he went back to looking for more things that I didn't want him to mess with.
I crashed back onto the couch, closed my eyes and listened to him pull out toys. Parts of the living room floor were not yet covered with toys, and he believed that this needed to be fixed. He was very industrious, and when I opened my eyes in little slits to peak around the room, I saw a sea of plastic animals, trucks, musical instruments, balls and blocks strewed about. It looked like a Toys-R-Us store had exploded. After he finished, he came over to the couch to see if I could be brought around. My head was turned to the side, so he pushed it to an upright position. I let it flop back over. He tried again only to get the same result. Hmmm. Mom seems to need nourishment to give her energy. I felt him press something small and hard to my lips. I tasted the offering and discovered it was a stale Cheerio.
"Thank you," I told him again. I took it from him and searched for someplace to put it. In a valiant effort to make it into the office, I had actually gotten dressed yesterday morning, only to discover that there was no way in hell that I had the energy to drive anywhere. I was still dressed in my work clothes by the afternoon, and neither the skirt nor the blouse I had on had pockets. I slipped the Cheerio into my bra. It was either that or eat it, and I can barely stomach Cheerios when they aren't stale. But my son simply does not accept no for an answer when he has a present to give you. Fortunately, bras are great storage devices, and not just for breasts. Later that evening when I undressed and took off my bra, several stale Cheerios, an equally stale Teddy Graham and a toddler-sized plastic spoon would fall to the floor of my bedroom. At one point in my life, spare cash, my driver's license and matchbooks with a phone numbers scrawled on them have fallen out of my bra at the end of an evening. I pondered about how things are different now before I drifted off to sleep.
Today, I am feeling better. Jeff dried up the sea of toys when he came home from work, and they will stay contained in the banks of the toy box until our son spills them back across the floor this evening. My son is back in daycare, no doubt telling the other toddlers about the things you can get away with when your mother is passed out in a semi-stupor on the couch. I am back at my work computer, typing up a blog entry on company time. And somewhere in my house, the rest of my son's secret stash of Cheerios is growing yet staler, waiting for the next time I need to be revived from the living room couch with a slightly soggy bit of toasted-oat goodness.
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am feeling better
Date: 2006-05-04 08:24 pm (UTC)Re: am feeling better
Date: 2006-05-04 09:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-04 09:06 pm (UTC)Glad your feeling better and the sea of toys is back to their rightful places.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-04 09:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-04 09:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-04 09:28 pm (UTC)Not so in love that I'll eat stale cereal, though.
no subject
Date: 2006-05-05 03:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-05 05:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-05 06:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-05 06:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-05-05 08:20 pm (UTC)ROTFLMAO!!! Just wait til he learns to say, "Bite Me!" -- and he WILL learn it... from Rorie, if nowhere else.
Ya' know, you just passed up a perfect opportunity to get rid of that house without a complaint from Jeff. "Oh, Honey! I just fell asleep for a MINUTE and I don't know HOW he possibly could have reached it and why do we have a can of butane anyway and when do we get that insurance check 'cuz the house next door won't last forever..."
no subject
Date: 2006-05-05 08:28 pm (UTC)Argh. Why does Jeff love our place? Why does it matter to Jeff that we have a back yard big enough to play professional football in? Is it a guy thing? That he can look at other men's back yards and think, "Ha. Mine's bigger."