Ma’am, I’m Sorry. It’s A Bad Case of Harley Crotch.

Yesterday it finally happened: I became a real parent.

I have seen it mentioned many times that one is not truly a parent until one has been vomited upon and been to the emergency room. I have disregarded this cliche for the past almost-four years but obviously did not dodge it completely because it was still there in a dark corner of my head as I pulled the vomity shirt over my head and prepared to call the nurseline for advice.

But this is not the post I want to write. It is a boring story with not much humour in it; yesterday Fresco spent the day with a sudden, bad cough and trouble breathing, he ended the evening with a hysterical crying/coughing fit and then blew chunks all over me. I put him to bed and he went to sleep and then I called the nurseline. The nurseline nurse said, with that slow, cautious tone, “I am a little worried about him actually” which, in my experience, is unlike a nurseline nurse, so I took him out of bed and we went to the local ER and were there for 3 hours and he doesn’t have an infection or asthma, but I’m glad I went because I wouldn’t have slept if we’d stayed home either, The End.

Oh, also; chest x-rays on children (& possibly adults?) are fairly terrifying, in a “Brazil” (the movie) kind of way.

The post I wanted to write? I was thinking about one about Fresco turning 22 months old, which means he is 2 months short of his second birthday and older now than Trombone was when he became an older brother. I had also been thinking about older brother / younger brother dynamics. I am toying with the idea of giving up dairy again – excellent blog-fodder and also, relevant to the blog’s title – but I’ve already blown that for today because all there was to eat in the fridge was leftover lasagna and what was I going to do, ignore it? Then there was the post about writing and how hard it is to work the fiction muscles after so long working the non-fiction muscles. (think: those guys who have the big upper bodies but tiny little thighs and look like cartoon characters when they walk.)

(Or, for that matter, the guy I saw at the Safeway parking lot the other day who walked like he’d been riding a motorcycle for about 15 years straight, which waddling “I just peed my pants” look I have dubbed “Harley Crotch” unless someone else has already come up with that one. “Harley Crotch” isn’t contagious but it is conducive to slow-growing fungi, etc. It is possible that only someone who has lived in downtown Vancouver and/or hates motorcycles will find this amusing.)

Because of the events of yesterday and last night, though, I have only had 6 hours of sleep, which, it turns out, is not enough anymore; I enjoy my nightly 8ish hours thankyouverymuch and I have a similar cough to Fresco’s but I don’t intend to vomit – and at least now we have an inhaler in the house in case my own airways become constricted. I can hear Trombone in his room engaging in some raucous pretend play to rid himself of sick-younger-brother frustration; something about a wagon going over a cliff and a young boy landing ass over teakettle (not his words) in the prickly bushes, which means he is not napping, though he could surely use it, and which also means that I only have until 2:30 to do whatever I need to do without the company of at least one child.

So this will have to do.

In sum: I am tired. And grateful for our health care system and for coffee and for another sunshiney day that meant I could sit without my jacket on and drink coffee while the children dug in the woodchip playground, the faint cacophony of “Mine! MINE! MINE!” enveloped by the mist of my reverie.

Also, I would like to share this picture of Morgan Freeman, which is what I keep coming back to for another dose of strength until later today when I can eat an inhuman portion of oven fries and go to bed.