Wheeeeeeeee!

It’s bitter cold now where we live. Winter was late to the party but when she finally showed up she came flapping her arms like a crazy neighbor. So the JackRabbit and I don’t go out much. We still run errands and terrorize the quiet shoppers at the grocery store but we aren’t taking walks or playing outside.

My guilt has been slightly soothed with the brilliant idea to move his Little Tykes fort and slide into the kitchen. It was in our “three season room”– but since the Cokes and 7-ups are starting to freeze out there we’ve neglected his plastic fortress of solitude. Robby and I tackled it last night– moving furniture out of the breakfast nook to make way for it.

And now my kitchen is pretty darned festive. When I was a kid I used to dream about a house with a long slide in it. (It may have come from my formative year visits to Cedar Point and the Fun House there.) And now I get to live the dream.

If Jack grows up with a house WITH a slide in it will he dream up a house with a normal breakfast nook? Check back in 30 years and I’ll let you know.

Vomitorium, Sweet Vomitorium

Dear Future and In Therapy Jack,

Well, kiddo, looks like Mommy will have another black mark against her… or at least you’ll get your pyschoanalyst to side with you on this one. But maybe this can help swing the scales back to my side?

Our longest week started on Sunday. Daddy had been harboring some festering illness for a few days and it exploded that night after you’d gone to bed. (Exploded being a key word…) Daddy and I were worried about the little black dog– he was limping, see, and we thought he’d done something to his little black paw. When we tried to examine it he snapped at us and whimpered. I thought we should try again– I wondered if he had something stuck in it and I hated the sound of his crying. (The dog, that is.) Daddy and I were taking things out to the kitchen to turn in for the night and I asked, as Daddy headed into the bathroom, “Hey– would you look at Phibby’s paw again before we go upsta—-” Your father erupted with some kind of cartoon-slapping-liquid noise of vomit. I called out, “Are you okay?” and again with the blender-full-of-bananas-being poured-on-to-loose-gravel noise.

Now, Jack, surely by now you know that Mommy has one heck of a gag reflex. She inherited it from her Momma. So by the third Hanna-Barbara noise from Daddy I had to rush to the nearest receptacable myself. Unfortunately, as I stuck my head into the kitchen sink and turned on the tap to suck in some water the full force of that night’s Taco Extravaganza! pan I’d yet to clean hit me and quachhh (Daddy says I sound like a duck when I gag) into the sink I went, too. It struck me as funny so I started to laugh and cry and vomit all at once while your Dad kept up his end of the act in the bathroom.

Eventually we made it to bed and– in the morning– Daddy was feeling just fine, thank you, and the sink got a good scrubbing. [The dog, by the way, turned out to have a slipped knee disc or something of that nature. He's on cortizone pills and should be fine. The vet gently reminded me that this happened before-- but it was before you were born and apparently it's part of my brain that was needed to gestate you.]

Everybody was fine on Monday, in fact– too fine, maybe. On Tuesday you hung out with Momma so Mommy could go see a movie with some old galpals. [For the record, it was nice to go to a chick flick in the middle of the day but even nicer to come back home to you-- so just drop the Abandonment Issues bit, kiddo. Nobody's buying it.] When I came to pick you up at Momma’s you were still waking up from your nap and you were uncharacteristically sleepy and wanted to be cuddled. (Funny how those blatant warning bells are silenced in my glee that you want to snuggle.)

You were still sleepy and unJacklike when I took you home and started dinner. Momma called and asked if I wanted to make a grocery run and I left you with your Dad– still snuggley and quiet and queer acting. When I returned you and Daddy were in different clothes– apparently you’d waited till I was at the end of the driveway then threw up all over your Dad (you had a lot of mini-quiche at lunch… and it all came flying back up)… the two of you jumped into the shower where you threw up again (poor naked Daddy).

The house smelled horrible. Eau d’Puke. I settled you again then ran back out to buy Lysol and baking soda and carpet cleaners and Fabreeze. When I got back you threw up again and again and again till you were throwing up ochre bile. We called Momma, wailing, and she came over to tell us it was bile and sit with you while we cleaned and (finally) picked at our dinner.

You and I spent Wednesday playing quietly and with me semi-forcing you to drink water once in a while (apparently you’re not a fan of Pedialite). All this time you had horrible gas– big, smelly Old Man gas–. I laid you down on your back in the mid-afternoon to change what I thought must be the ghastliest diaper yet when you suddenly, like a little geyser, fountained-up a cascade of vomit that went up, up, up into the room then down, down, down on to your little face. You had puke in your ears, your hair, your eyes, your nose, your mouth, your pajammas… and you kept puking while I rolled you to your side and quachhhh-ed into a towel (by this time, by the way, after 6 loads of laundry, I was keeping towels everywhere within reach). I sat you up– poor, screaming, wailing, pukey you– to clean you off and the minute your warm vomit soaked into the towel I was holding the proverbial fan was hit and I threw up again. On you.

So you see– it’s not as if I was out hard drinking and stumbled home to vomit on my only son or that I wantonly used you to kick off my new weightloss regime (#1 reason I can’t ever be bulimic or anorexic– I don’t enjoy the tossing of the cookies…) — the fact was we were all sick with whatever it was Daddy had brought home. (Your aunt is convinced that it’s SARS or Asian Bird Flu since Daddy works for an asian company…)

Granted, kiddo, what we’ve learned here is that Mommy doesn’t handle puke very well. But this has long been established. Mommy has several character witnesses that you can reference that will agree that never has Mommy handled puke well. (Ask Auntie Ericka– it’s a good story.) And luckily for you and me Momma happened to be in the country during all this so she came to our rescue– holding a sniveling you while I showered your bile out of my hair… and even tackling the living room. (My plan had been to seal it off and just live in the rest of the house.) And you proceeded to throw up for another day and a half before you turned the corner to being JackRabbit again.

Sorry about this week, baby. Oh, and tell your therapist that Mommy will be happy to discuss those pictures we took, too.

I love you,
Mommy

Emily Post might want to crib this

One more thing about my New Year’s Eve descent into the madness that is Grand Theft Auto… I meant to mention the other day that our pal Chris was very generous to share it with us. He hadn’t owned it for a full 24 hours before we were all taking turns. Some of us longer turns than others… (Of course, in my defense, is it my fault that I have some kind of super-power skills in street crime?)

Still, Chris didn’t balk when we all wanted to play. ANd play. And play. Is it ever too late to tell somebody’s mom that they did a good job teaching their little boy to share?

Dear Mother of Chris,
Thanks for teaching long ago little Chris to share. His grown up friends appreciate it. We spent last weekend with your son and his wife and they couldn’t have been nicer to us and our small son. They even made sure we had a bed– always a premium at their happy full house parties.

My husband and I really enjoyed killing prostitutes, mowing down pimps with various stolen vehicles, and eluding the 5-0 while ensuring that our mob boss was delivered comfortably to his next safe house. I took personal pleasure in tipping off Chris to the meat cleaver at the Chinatown location knowing that it would add greatly to his enjoyment of his new toy.

Thanks for raising a generous son,
Sincerely,
Terri and Robby

P.S. Your son makes a killer relish tray. Who knew I’d like caviar? And your grandson’s deer sausage was a big hit.

Oops there goes another…

I’ll take a break from paving the road to Hell to admit that I’ve entered this bright shiny, new Year of promise in a most inexcusable way.

We spent the weekend with a knot of friends. New Year’s Eve had the usual elements of this paticular group– a few goofy phone calls to homebound friends; some 15 year old Scotch (ugh.); bad TV– (if you missed Anderson Cooper’s horrified segues to his apparently drunken female cohort and her drunken sorority pals than you missed a lot); a little homegrown music with the oddest assortment of two autoharps, a bass, and a guitar– (you don’t see that combo very often and probably that’s best); and a lot of conversation.

Jack entertained us all with his utter love for SadieLou the Patient Dog and his beguiling fascination with the tiny door on Friend Susan’s dollhouse. He spent most of the weekend with his tractors and trains clutched tightly in his fists… as though afraid we’d want to play with them, too… and a gleeful delight in the springs on Auntie Susan’s furniture. (Sorry about that.) He didn’t see midnight– he celebrated with Greenland time and went to bed before the celebrations hit the East coast. Tucked away in his little tuxedo he missed our cheers at the stroke of the 12 hour.

Where it all went wrong was with my pal Chris and his new toy. He bought a PSP. Having been blessed with a uterus I’m not entirely familiar with PSPs or the like. And his choice of game– Grand Theft Auto disgusted me. I’ve brought this up in conversation– my repulsion that such a game should be invented and that young boys would be allowed to play it. In it one can steal cars, assualt innocent people, buy a prostitute… there’s nothing redeemable about it.

I’ll still argue that your average 14 year old kid has no right to play it. It’s wrong. But I’m in my mid 30s and Darn it! I deserve a little vicarious fun.

And oh sweet Moses… it’s fun. And not, “oooh! I just passed Go and collected $200 dollars!” fun or “Wee! this swingset really lets you fly high into the sky, doesn’t it?” fun… but debauched and carnal fun.

Really, who doesn’t want to punch somebody once in a while? Or ram another car into the intersection? Steal an ambulance?

Chris let me play. And I loved it. Frankly, I was good at it. (Handy to know if the Mob would ever require me to run a few missions for them.) It contributed to my street knowledge– who knew that mob lackeys can’t swim? that striking dockworkers could be so mean? It also confirmed what I already suspected– you shouldn’t punch a police officer within a few yards of the precinct. And vans don’t float. Also good to know that it’s a lot safer to drive a garbage truck through a crowd of people than a moped. And buses are REALLY complicated to steer.

Robby played, too. We felt kind of dirty afterward. But oddly satisfied. And it gave us a great conversation on the long drive back to our state– frankly, I don’t know how we’ll top this line of discussion even if we have all year to try:

R: So you didn’t take the prostitutes’ money after you beat them to death?
T: I couldn’t figure out how.
R: There’s a little dollar sign floating above their bodies…
T: I never saw that. Maybe I only beat them up and didn’t actually kill them.
R: Well what’s the point of that?

Indeed. Besides. I have 364 days to be a better person.