Mama Did A Bad, Bad Thing

I wish I could play the noise for you. The noise he was making when he woke up this morning at 7am, 10 seconds after the front door closed on SA and just as I was leisurely rolling towards my bathrobe. [I am a fool. One hour earlier, I thought, the smart thing would be to get up now. Even though I’m tired. Let’s face it – I am always going to be tired and if I get up NOW, I can have coffee and breakfast and some time alone. My precious. Time. Alone. Are you guessing that I fell back asleep? You are a Smart Monkey. (TM) And I? Am a fool.]

The noise, anyway, is amazing. It’s more than a whine but less than a cry. It’s like if Rob Thomas from Matchbox 20 was being quartered by a table saw. (And what a world that would be.) It’s like if Enrique Inglesias was being parallel-parked upon by a 16-year-old myopic (sans glasses) driving his dad’s pickup truck. Standard transmission pickup truck. Standard transmission pickup truck with leaking coolant.

Where was I?

Now that I think about it, I know I don’t have to play the noise for you – and not because I just evoked it with my stunningly accurate similies but because a lot of you of you have children of your own and have heard the noise firsthand. And those of you who don’t have children probably have a partner or have had a partner who doesn’t do Sick well. Notice how non-gender-specific I’m being? Some say that men are worse at Sick than women, but as that is not the case in our house, I won’t say it. Around here, I am the moany, grumpy one who calls from the couch for more soup, no, not that kind of soup the GOOD KIND, what do you mean we don’t have any, dammit my life SUCKS! Partly this is because I don’t interact well with most OTC cold remedies (and some prescription ones, too – hey, if this blog is ever in an accident, be sure & tell the paramedics I’m allergic to penicillin) so I remain staunchly unmedicated through my illnesses. On the bright side, I’m convinced that this both helps me get better faster and makes me a goddamned hero.

This was about the kid, wasn’t it. Mr. Snots-a-lot. Sir Wheezy.

After a couple of days wondering if he was going to get the cold I’m almost done with (just at the hacking-up-a-kidney stage now) and that Saint Aardvark has just started, this morning the answer was clear. Y-E-S-S-I-R-E-E-M-A-M-A-C-I-T-A was spelled out in snot on his bedroom wall. No! I had no idea he called me that! A little creepy, I agree. So we came downstairs. I made oatmeal for my breakfast and he continued to make the Noise. I jollied about, offering him toys, vitamin D, (cherry flavoured elixer!) diaper changes, my breast, my other breast, songs of beauty, songs of despair; nothing doing. While he sat on my lap as I ate my oatmeal, the screen of the laptop caught his eye and suddenly, the Noise stopped.

What did I do next?

You bet. I put him in his carseat & lambkin a safe distance from the TV and turned on the PBS. I am a kids’ tv virgin, so the show about the bedbugs kind of freaked me out a little (also it took me far too long to figure out that their friend, “J. Edgar” is a vacuum. also, isn’t that a dangerous kind of friend for a bedbug to have?) but the Noise stopped. For 45 minutes (then Barney came on DEAR GOD I know it was hip to hate on Barney like 10 years ago but I ONLY JUST see what you all meant) it stopped and then he was tired so he nursed and went to sleep. Trombone, not Barney. Ewww!

It had never occurred to me to turn the tv on as a distraction. And I don’t plan to make a habit of it but ’round these parts when you’re sick and it’s raining outside? You get to watch TV in your pyjamas. Especially if it makes you forget to make that noise.